LIBRARY 

%ITY  OF 
RHIA 

.        SArt  DIEGO 


PRIZE  ESSAYS 

OF  THE 

AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION 


1905 


To  this  Essay  was  awarded  the 

HERBERT  BAXTER  ADAMS  PRIZE 

IN  EUROPEAN  HISTORY 

for  1905 


BY 

DAVID  SAVILLE  MUZZEY,  PH.  D. 


NEW  YORK  :     1907 

REPRINT 

WASHINGTON  :     AMERICAN   HISTORICAL   ASSOCIATION 

LONDON  :      HUMPHREY   MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1914 


COPYRIGHT,  1914 

BY  THE  AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


THE  LORD  BALTIMORE  PRESS 
BALTIMORE,  MD.,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  PAGE 

The  Spiritual  Franciscans      .  •       l 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Spirituals  of  the  March  of  Ancona  .     18 

CHAPTER  III. 
The  Spirituals  of  Provence  •     29 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Tuscan  Spirituals    .  •     49 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Michaelists     ...  -6° 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Conclusion w 

APPENDIX  I:    The   Genealogy  of   the   Spiritual 
Franciscans         .         .         .     '    •         •         •         •     71 

APPENDIX  II :  Generals  of  the  Order  and  Roman 
Pontiffs,  1200-1334 

APPENDIX  III :  Bibliographical  Notes  on  the  Early 
Legends  of  Saint  Francis  .  -73 

APPENDIX  IV:    Bibliography  •     87 

(v) 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS. 

When  an  idea  finds  acceptance  in  the  world,  it  clothes 
itself  in  forms  available  for  it  and  adapted  to  it. 
Socialization  means  institutionalization.  For  if  an  idea 
is  to  have  growth,  it  must  adopt  propagandism;  and 
propagandism  implies  the  equipment  of  missionaries, 
the  establishment  of  posts  and  stations,  the  instruction 
of  neophytes,  the  control  of  agents,  the  commission 
of  tribunals — in  a  single  word,  organization.  To  a 
majority  of  converts  to  any  religious  ideal  this  course  of 
development  seems  normal  and  desirable,  the  index  of 
the  triumph  of  the  ideal  among  men.  But  a  minority 
have  always  deplored  such  adaptation  and  institution- 
alization as  a  weak  compromise  with  the  world,  or  even 
as  a  treasonable  surrender  of  the  pure  ideal  to  those 
very  powers  of  evil  for  whose  destruction  it  was  con- 
ceived. Moreover,  the  zealous  minority,  bound  into  a 
closer  solidarity  by  the  very  fact  of  their  minority,  their 
puritanism  heightened  by  persecution,  have  quite  com- 
monly developed  the  pathological  traits  consequent 
upon  the  conviction  of  persecuted  innocence  and  im- 
potent fidelity.  They  have  appealed  from  the  world  to 
heaven,  from  time  to  eternity,  from  man  to  God.  Their 
language  has  ceased  to  be  a  medium  of  human  com- 
merce, and  has  become  an  instrument  of  supernatural 
oracles.  Their  refuge  has  been  in  retreat,  absorption, 
mysticism,  prophecy,  ecstasy.  Their  fate,  in  so  far  as 


2  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

they  have  not  been  crushed  by  persecution,  reconciled 
by  persuasion,  or  sobered  by  compromise,  has  been  a 
gradual  weakening  to  final  euthanasia. 

The  Franciscan  zealots  were  such  a  minority. 
Their  fortunes  during  the  century  from  the  death  of 
Saint  Francis  of  Assisi  to  the  death  of  Pope  John  XXII 
form  an  important  chapter  of  medieval  history.  For 
not  only  did  they  manifest  in  themselves  all  the  traits 
of  the  righteous  and  persecuted  minority — mysticism, 
asceticism,  prophetism — but  they  also  had  a  part  to 
play  in  events  of  general  significance  for  Europe.  They 
were  the  occasion  of  deliberation  of  cardinals  and 
princes,  of  the  publication  of  solemn  bulls  and  the 
decrees  of  ecclesiastical  councils.  They  had  a  hand  in 
the  creation  of  popes  and  antipopes.  They  stood  be- 
tween a  hostile  curia  and  a  Holy  Roman  Emperor. 
They  won  the  favor  of  kingly  courts.  They  formed 
centres  of  attraction  for  heretics  of  various  types. 

Yet  these  remarkable  enthusiasts  have  received  but 
scant  attention  at  the  hands  of  the  historians  of  the 
Church.  Hardly  any  serious  effort  was  made  to  dis- 
criminate and  investigate  the  various  groups  of  Fran- 
ciscan zealots  which  appeared  in  the  provinces  of  Italy 
and  southern  France  until  the  Jesuit  scholar  Franz 
Ehrle  in  1885  began  his  series  of  publications  in  the 
Archiv  fur  Literatur-  und  Kirchengeschichte,  entitled, 
"  Die  Spiritualen,  ihr  Verhaltniss  zum  Franciscaner- 
orden  und  zu  den  Fraticellen  ",  "  Zur  Vorgeschichte  des 
Concils  von  Vienne  ",  and  "  Petrus  Johannis  Olivi,  sein 
Leben  und  seine  Schriften "/  As  the  titles  show, 
Ehrle's  work  was  concerned  primarily  with  the  Spiri- 

1  Archiv  fiir  Literatur-  und  Kirchengeschichte  (A.  L.  K.  G.),  I,  508- 
569;  II,  108-164,  249-336,  353-416;  III,  1-196,  409-552,  553-623;  IV,  1-201. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS  3 

tual  Franciscans  of  the  late  thirteenth  and  the  four- 
teenth centuries.  The  same  year  (1885)  there  ap- 
peared a  trenchant  critical  analysis  of  the  Franciscan 
order  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  thirteenth  century,  by 
Karl  Muller,'  and  the  first  volume  of  a  series  of  careful 
publications  of  early  Franciscan  texts  by  the  Minorite 
brothers  of  the  College  of  Saint  Bonaventura  at  Qua- 
racchi,  near  Florence.3  These  books  marked  rather 
than  inaugurated  the  revival  in  the  study  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan movement,  which  was  stimulated  by  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  seven  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  Pove- 
rello's  birth  (1882),  and  which  has  continued  strong  to 
the  present  time. 

Since  the  appearance  in  1894  of  Paul  Sabatier's  Vie 
de  Saint  Francois  d'Assise,  the  literature  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan revival  has  been  characterized  by  two  tendencies : 
the  first  toward  the  study  of  the  earliest  years  of  the 
order,  and  the  second  toward  the  separation  of  Fran- 
ciscan scholars  into  two  sharply  defined  groups — 
Sabatier's  followers  and  Sabatier's  opponents.4  In  the 
intense  polemics  over  the  early  years  of  the  order,  the 
history  of  the  later  development  of  the  Spiritual  party 
has  been  unduly  neglected.  Even  Ehrle's  magnificent 
contribution  has  lain  unused  and  almost  unread,  except 
for  the  gleaning  of  some  quotations  from  Angelo  da 

*  Die  Anfange  des  Minoritenordens  und  der  Bussbriiderschaften,  Frei- 
burg,  1885. 

3  Analecta  Franciscana,  sive  Chronica  aliaque  Documenta  ad  Historiam 
Minorum  Spectantia,  ed.  Quinzianus  Muller  et  al.  ad  Claras  Aquas, 
1885  ft. 

*  The  most  determined  opponents  of  Sabatier  have  been  the  Bollandist 
Van    Ortroy   and    Faloci-Pulignani,    editor   of    the   Miscellanea    Francis- 
cana.    The  chief  question  at  issue  has  been  the  authenticity  and  date 
of  certain  documents  purporting  to  come  from  Francis'  immediate  disci- 
ples.    A  statement  of  the  case  for  and  against  Sabatier's  "  school  "  would 
need  more  space  than  a  foot-note  can  afford.     See  Bibliographical  Note, 
Appendix  III. 


4  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

Clarino's  Historic,  Tribulacionum  as  proof  texts  in  the 
controversies  over  the  origins  of  the  order.8 

The  object  of  this  essay  is  to  give  a  survey  of  the 
Spiritual  Franciscans  through  the  entire  first  century  of 
the  order,  from  the  death  of  Saint  Francis  to  the  days 
of  Pope  John  XXII.  For  logical  purposes  I  shall 
neglect  the  chronological  order,  taking  as  a  starting 
point  an  event  just  in  the  middle  of  the  period  under 
survey  and  working  both  backward  and  forward  there- 
from. 

At  the  chapter-general  of  the  order  held  at  Narbonne 
in  1260,  the  minister-general,  Bonaventura,  was  com- 
missioned to  write  the  legend  of  Saint  Francis.'  The 
chapter  at  Pisa  three  years  later  solemnly  approved  the 
work ;  while  the  next  chapter,  held  at  Paris  under  Bona- 
ventura's  presidency  in  1266,  published  the  following 
significant  decree :  "  Item  praecipit  generale  Capitulum 
per  oboedientiam  quod  omnes  legendae  de  beato  Fran- 
cisco olim  factae  deleantur;  et  ubi  invenire  poterunt 
extra  ordinem  ipsas  f  ratres  studeant  amovere,  cum  ilia 
legenda  quae  facta  est  per  Generalem  sit  compilata 
prout  ipse  habuit  ab  ore  illorum  qui  cum  beato  Fran- 
cisco quasi  semper  fuerunt  et  cuncta  certitudinaliter 
sciverint ". T 

8  Mr.  H.  C.  Lea  in  his  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
(vol.  Ill),  has  used  Ehrle's  writings  for  his  short  chapter  on  "  The  Spiri- 
tual Franciscans  ". 

'  "  Legenda  Sancti  Francisci,  Bonaventura  auctore."  Acta  Sanctorum, 
Oct.,  torn.  II,  3,  i. 

T  Found  in  a  manuscript  of  sermons  at  Gubbio,  and  published  by 
Rinaldi  in  the  preface  to  his  edition  of  the  Vita  Secunda  S.  Francisci 
by  Thomas  of  Celano,  1806.  Luke  Wadding,  the  annalist  of  the  Order, 
knew  of  the  decree  suppressing  the  legends  prior  to  Bonaventura's,  but 
he  wrongly  attributed  it  to  the  chapter  of  Pisa.  He  says:  "  Utramque 
historiam  obtulit  [Bonaventura]  triennio  post  in  comitiis  Pisanis  fratri- 
bus  ordinis  quas  .  .  .  suppressis  aliis  quibusque  legendis  admiserunt  ". 
Wadding,  Annales  Minorum,  zd  ed.,  Fonseca,  Rome,  1731  ff.,  ad  ann. 
1260,  no.  1 8. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS  5 

That  this  decree  was  not  simply  a  guileless,  disin- 
terested measure  "  to  secure  liturgical  harmony  ",  as 
Van  Ortroy  contends,  but  was  part  of  a  policy  to  have 
done  with  the  dangerous  influence  of  the  party  which 
stood  for  a  return  to  the  early  purity  and  simplicity  of 
the  order,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  same  chapter  of 
Narbonne  drew  up  the  official  catalogue  of  the  Con- 
stitutions of  the  order,  and  prescribed  in  the  first  rubric 
of  the  same  that  all  other  existing  Constitutions  should 
be  destroyed.8 

The  moment  of  Bonaventura's  accession  to  the 
generalship  of  the  order  was  a  critical  one.  His  pre- 
decessor, John  of  Parma  (1247-1257),  had  been  a  pro- 
nounced patron  of  the  strict  party,  himself  a  man  of 
stern  ascetic  piety.9  Under  his  generalate  the  party  had 
dared  to  assert  itself  in  prophetic  writings  which 
breathed  a  tone  of  hostility  to  the  Roman  Church,  and 
to  hail  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  of  the  Spirit,  in  which  the 
"  true  Franciscans "  (themselves,  naturally)  should 
rule.  The  great  order  was  seriously  compromised  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Roman  court.  The  time  had  come  to  put 
a  stop  to  the  ravings  of  fanatics.  Bonaventura,  though 
he  was  himself  a  mystic 10  and  keenly  alive  to  the  world- 

8  Analecta  Bollandiana,  XVIII  (1899).  See  also  Ehrle's  original  dis- 
cussion of  the  subject  in  the  A.  L.  K.  G.,  VI,  "  Die  alteste  Redaction  der 
Generalconstitutionen  des  Franciscanerordens  ". 

8  For  the  opposition  of  the  "  lax  "  Franciscans  to  John  of  Parma  see 
Wadding's  Tacitean  passage,  ad  ann.  1256,  no.  i :  "  Hinc  secretum  mur- 
mur, frequentia  conciliabula,  deinde  constans  in  hominem  conspiratio 
quae  eousque  prorupit  ut  de  multis  accusarent  virum  probum  apud  Pontifi- 
cem  ". 

10  See  his  works,  the  Breviloquium  and  the  Itinerarium  Mentis  in 
Deum,  ed.  Hefele,  Tubingen,  1861.  Thomas  Davidson  has  declared  the 
latter  work  "  a  complete  manual  of  mysticism  ". 


6  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

liness  which  had  crept  in  among  the  brothers,11  never- 
theless did  not  hesitate  an  instant  when  it  was  a  question 
of  saving  the  reputation  of  the  order  in  the  eyes  of  the 
great  Catholic  Church.  In  the  chapter  of  Citta  della 
Pieve  he  proceeded  with  such  severity  against  the 
"  fanatics  "  that  even  the  saintly  John  of  Parma  him- 
self was  condemned,  and  would  hardly  have  escaped 
prison  had  it  not  been  for  the  timely  intervention  of  his 
friend,  the  cardinal  Ottobonus  Fliscus,  later  Pope 
Hadrian  V." 

How  well  the  decree  of  the  Parisian  chapter  of  1266 
succeeded  in  retiring  the  earlier  legends  of  Saint 
Francis  is  strikingly  shown  by  the  embarrassment  of 
the  Spiritual  party  a  few  decades  later.  Angelo  da 
Clarino  and  his  followers  knew  that  the  Poverello  had 
"  communicated  many  things  to  his  companions  and  the 
earliest  brethren  ",  which  had  been  lost  in  consequence 
of  Bonaventura's  decree.13  They  were  therefore  limited 
to  a  few  meagre  documents  like  the  cedulae  and  rotuli 
of  Brother  Leo  in  the  conduct  of  their  case  against  the 
lax  majority  of  the  order.  Moreover,  the  early  Rules, 
in  which  Saint  Francis  had  expressed  his  own  will  for 
his  order,  were  superseded  by  the  emasculated  official 
Rule,  which  was  approved  by  the  pope  in  1223  (regida 
bullata).  The  earlier  biographers  "  mention  the  several 

11  Bonaventura  says  of  the  abuses  in  the  Order:  "  licet  tepidis  et  inde- 
votis  et  secundum  carnem  sapientibus  .  .  .  quasi  facilia  et  excusabilia  et 
irremediabilia  videantur  ".  Opera  S.  Bonaventurae,  Epist.  I.  (Quaracchi, 
III,  468-469). 

"  Historia  Septem  Tribulacionum  Ordinis  Minorum,  by  Angelo  da 
Clarino;  Ehrle  in  A.  L.  K.  G.,  II,  285-286  (cited  below  as  Hist.  Trib.). 
1  "  Communicaverat  enim  sanctus  Franciscus  plurima  sociis  suis  et 
fratribus  antiquis,  que  oblivione  tradita  sunt,  turn  quia  que  scripta  erant 
in  legenda  prima  .  .  .  deleta  et  destructa  sunt  ipso  [ Bonaventura] 
jubente."  Hist.  Trib.,  folio  326.  Ehrle,  A.  L.  K.  G.,  II,  265-266. 

14  Legenda  Trium  Sociorttm,  35,  57;  Vita  Secunda,  auctore  Celano,  3, 
68;  3,  no. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS  7 

Rules  which  the  saint  composed,  but  from  Bonaven- 
tura's  day  these  Rules  fell  into  oblivion,  and  were,  like 
the  early  legends,  lost  to  the  Spirituals  of  the  four- 
teenth century.15 

The  crusade  of  the  opening  years  of  Bonaventura's 
generalate  against  the  Franciscan  writings  which  could 
become  dangerous  weapons  in  the  hands  of  the  Spiritual 
party,  though  not  accompanied  by  cruel  persecutions 
like  those  under  Boniface  VIII  and  Clement  V,  nor 
attended  by  the  dramatic  scenes  of  the  long  struggle  of 
the  party  against  the  implacable  John  XXII,  neverthe- 
less was  the  very  chief  crisis  in  the  history  of  the  order. 
It  marked  the  consummation  of  the  policy  begun  by 
Gregory  IX  in  his  famous  bull,  Quo  elongati  saeculo, 
namely,  the  subordination  of  the  order  to  the  Roman 
curia.  Until  Bonaventura's  time  the  strict  minority, 
although  a  party  of  protest,  and  subject  to  some  perse- 
cution, were  not  schismatists.  They  had  seen  the  order 
growing  worldly  and  rich,  building  fine  churches  and 
competing  for  chairs  of  learning  in  the  universities. 
They  had  seen  it  binding  itself  in  closer  and  closer  obli- 

15  See  Sabatier,  Speculum  Perfectionis,  seu  S.  Francisci  Assisiensis 
Legenda  Antiquissima,  Paris,  1898,  Introduction,  pp.  lix-lx.  In  insisting 
on  the  fact  that  the  use  of  the  primitive  Rule  (1210-1221)  by  the  author 
of  the  Speculum  Perfectionis  places  the  composition  of  the  legend  in  the 
early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Sabatier  remarks:  "A  partir  de 
Bonaventure,  la  regie  primitive  tombe  dans  1'oubli.  Les  Franciscains 
spirituels  du  commencement  du  XIVe  siecle  ne  songerent  pas  a  Ten 
tirer  ".  But  Van  Ortroy  in  1902  found  in  the  library  of  Saint  Isidore 
a  manuscript  containing  the  "  Declaration  of  the  Rule  of  Angelo  da 
Clarino  ",  showing  that  the  early  Rule  was  known  to  this  prominent 
Spiritual  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Lemmens  in  his  recent  edition  of 
the  Opuscula  Sancti  Patris  Francisci  Assisiensis  (Quaracchi,  1904) 
attacks  Sabatier's  position,  as  if  it  were  taken  after  Van  Ortroy's  dis- 
covery (p.  165).  To  this  Sabatier  very  justly  replies  in  the  tenth 
fascicule  of  the  Opuscules  de  Critique  Historique  (Paris,  1904):  "Me 
pardonnera-t-on  si  je  reponds  que  n'etant  ni  prophete  ni  meme  devin,  il 
m'aurait  etc  difficile  de  tenir  compte  en  1898  d'une  oeuvre  signalee  pour 
la  premiere  fois  le  15  Octobre,  1902?"  (p.  122). 
2 


8  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

gation  to  the  pope,  by  the  acceptance  of  various  con- 
cessions and  exemptions.  They  hoped  still,  however, 
for  reform  in  this  present  age  and  for  the  continuance 
of  the  order,  under  the  guidance  of  spiritually  minded 
leaders,  in  the  path  of  obedience  to  the  Rule  and  Testa- 
ment of  Saint  Francis.16  When  John  of  Parma  was 
elected  to  the  generalate  a  prayer  of  thanksgiving  went 
up  from  the  hearts  of  the  patient  saints,  and  the  im- 
petuous Brother  Giles  saluted  the  new  chief  with  the 
cry  of  plaintive  triumph :  "  Bene  et  opportune  venisti, 
frater,  sed  tarde  venisti "."  Their  rejoicing  was  cut 
short  however.  John  of  Parma  was  not  strong  enough 
to  sustain  the  attacks  of  the  lax  majority  inspired  by 
Rome.  He  was  accused  of  insubordination,  presumptu- 
ousness.  and  heresy; "  and  at  the  chapter  of  Ara  Coeli 
in  Rome  (February,  1257)  he  was  compelled  by  the 
pope  to  resign." 

Therewith  the  hopes  of  the  zealots  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  their  ideals  in  the  present  age  and  in  the  order 

*'  See  the  account  of  the  seventy-two  brothers  who  came  on  an  em- 
bassy to  Innocent  IV  in  the  time  of  Crescentius  (1244)  to  plead  for 
the  reform  of  the  Order.  Hist.  Trib.,  293,  Ehrle,  loc.  cit.  Angelo  dig- 
nifies this  protest  by  the  name  of  "  schism  ",  which  seems  to  me  a  pre- 
mature use  of  the  word. 

"  "  Socii  s.  Francisci  qui  tune  supererant  laetabantur  et  gaudebant, 
quia  in  ipso  [John  of  Parma]  s.  Franciscum  in  spiritu  resurrectum  cerne- 
bant.  Gratia  agimus  tibi,  Domine,  dicebant,  quia  recordatus  es  nostri  " 
.  .  .  Hist.  Trib.,  31,  Ehrle,  loc.  cit.  Cf.  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1247,  no.  4: 
"  Vir  sanctus  .  .  .  cuius  electio  pacem  ordini  restituit  ". 

18  See  above,  note  9.     Charges  at  length   in  Wadding,  ad  ann.    1256, 
no.  2. 

19  There  is  a  dispute  among  the  early  historians  of  the  Order  whether 
John   of   Parma   resigned  voluntarily   or  under   pressure   from   the   pope. 
Angelo   (Hist.   Trib.,  34b),   Bernard  of  Bessa   (Ehrle,   in  Zeitschrift  fiir 
katholische  Theologie,  VII,  343),  Salimbene  (Chronica,  ed.  Parma,  1857, 
p.    137),   and   Wadding    (loc.    cit.)    support   the   former   view.      On    the 
other  hand,  the  author  of  the  Cronica  XXIV  Generalium  reports  a  cer- 
tain   legend   of   Peregrinus   de   Bononia    as   authority    for   the    enforced 
resignation:     "  Et   ego,    inquit,   in   capitulo    fui   mediator   inter   ipsum   et 
ministros,  et  hoc  habui  ex  ore  eius  ".     H.   Denifle,   in  A.  L.  K.   G.,   I, 
147.     Perhaps  Peregrinus's  legend  was  one  of  those  lost  after  1266. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS  g 

at  large  were  rudely  shattered.  They  drew  farther  and 
farther  apart  from  the  lax  majority,  and  took  refuge  in 
the  mystical  interpretation  of  Scripture  and  in  apoca- 
lyptic hopes.  Under  the  leadership  of  that  obscure 
genius,  Petrus  Johannis  Olivi  in  Provence,  and  of  Uber- 
tino  da  Casale,  Liberate,  and  Angelo  da  Clarino  in  Italy, 
they  established  strong  centres  for  the  promulgation  of 
the  ascetic-apocalyptic  ideas  of  the  Abbot  Joachim  of 
Flora,  and  brought  upon  themselves  the  bitter  persecu- 
tion of  the  heads  of  the  order.  Even  the  hunted  victims 
of  the  Inquisition,  the  sly  Cathari  and  the  meek  Wal- 
denses,  were  less  hateful  to  the  great  community  of  the 
Minorites  than  were  these  puritanical  separatists. 
"  Never  was  meat  sold  dearer  in  a  butcher's  shop  than 
the  price  your  flesh  would  bring  ",  said  the  inquisitor 
Thomas  of  A  versa  to  Brother  Liberate,  who  was  in- 
judiciously tarrying  in  his  district.20  The  history  of  the 
persecution  of  the  zealots  in  Provence,  Tuscany, 
Umbria,  the  March  of  Ancona,  and  the  Kingdom  of 
Naples,  in  the  years  from  the  Council  of  Lyons  (1274) 
to  the  death  of  John  XXII  (1334),  forms  a  stirring 
chapter  of  medieval  history.  We  may  say,  then,  that 
the  generalate  of  Bonaventura  marks  the  dividing  line 
between  the  two  periods  in  the  history  of  the  Spiritual 
Franciscans :  the  first  period  extending  from  the  early 
protests  in  the  order  to  the  deposition  of  John  of  Parma 
and  the  measures  of  Bonaventura  for  the  suppression 
of  the  literature  inspired  by  the  zealous  companion  of 
Saint  Francis;  the  second  period  extending  from  the 

20 "  Et  conversus  ad  fratrem  Liberatum  dixit:  Non  potest  expritni 
lingua  quantum  fratres  Minores  aversus  te  odium  conceperunt.  Et 
ego,  si  voluissem  te  vendere,  nunquam  alicuius  animalis  carnes  fuerunt 
ita  care  vendita  in  macello."  Hist.  Trib.,  540. 


io  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

Council  of  Lyons  to  the  extinction  of  the  schismatists 
by  John  XXII. 

The  recovery  of  pieces  of  literature  which  antedate 
the  official  legend  of  Bonaventura  has  been,  until  the 
last  generation,  only  occasional.  Luke  Wadding,  the 
classic  historiographer  of  the  order,  and  an  indefati- 
gable collector  of  manuscripts,  used  a  number  of  such 
pieces  in  his  monumental  Annales  Fratrum  Minorum 
(Antwerp,  1625  ff.).  But  Wadding  was  neither  exact 
in  the  description  nor  careful  in  the  preservation  of  his 
sources.  The  Bollandist  Suyskens,21  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  published,  along  with  Bonaventura's,  two 
earlier  legends  of  the  Poverello :  one  written  by  Thomas 
of  Celano  at  Pope  Gregory  IX's  bidding,  in  1228- 
1229 ; 22  the  other,  by  three  companions  of  Saint  Francis, 
Brothers  Leo,  Angelo,  and  Rufinus.23  A  third  step  in 
the  recovery  of  the  early  legends  was  the  publication  by 
Father  Rinaldi  at  Rome  in  1806  of  Thomas  of  Celano's 
Vita  Secunda  S.  Francisci**  From  1806  no  advance 
was  made  in  the  study  of  the  sources  of  the  Franciscan 
movement  until  recent  years,  when  Ehrle,  Miiller, 
Sabatier,  Van  Ortroy,  Little,  Mandonnet,  and  other 
scholars  have  contributed  important  documents  and 
critical  articles  to  early  Franciscan  history. 

21  Ada  Sanctorum,  Oct.,  torn.  II,  pp.  683-723,  723-742.     A  new  edition 
of  the  legend  of  Celano,  published  by  H.   G.   Rosedale,   London,    1904. 
(See  notice  of  same  in  Bibliographical  Note,  Appendix  III.) 

22  MS.   Latin  3817    [Alcove]    of  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  of  Paris: 
"  Apud    Perusium    felix    dominus    papa    Gregorius    nonus,    secundo    pon- 
tificatus   sui   anno,   quinto   Kal.    Martii    [Feb.    25,    1229]    legendam   hanc 
recepit  et  censuit  fore  tenendam  ".     The  last  three  words  indicate  that 
even  as  early  as  1229  there  were  competing  legends  of  the  saint. 

23  Legenda    Trium   Sociorum.      Acta   Sanctorum,    Oct.,    II,    723-742. 

24  Scraphici  Viri  S.  Francisci  Assisiensis  Vitae  duac,  Rome,  1806.     The 
Second   Life   was  written   at   the   invitation    of   the    General    Crescentius, 
1246-1247.      See    Prologue    I:     "  Placet   vobis  .  .   .  pervitati   nostrae    in- 
jungere  ",    etc.  .  .  .      For    new    developments    in    the    criticism    of    this 
legend  see  Appendix  III. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS  11 

Doubtless  such  literature  as  is  now  recovered  and 
printed  is  only  a  meagre  scrap  of  what  was  written  in 
the  early  years  of  the  order,  and  what  may  still,  in  great 
abundance,  be  awaiting  discovery — especially  in  the 
monasteries  of  the  Low  Countries  and  northern  Ger- 
many, because  there  they  were  furthest  from  the  hands 
of  the  censor." 

We  have  not  hints  alone,  but  proof  positive,  that  there 
was  a  lively  literary  activity  in  the  order  before  the 
middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  In  the  first  place,  the 
closing  words  of  the  endorsement  of  the  Vita  Prima  by 
Thomas  of  Celano  contain  strong  suggestion  that  there 
were  conflicting  interpretations  of  the  life  of  Saint 
Francis  as  early  as  the  year  1229."  Secondly,  when  the 
legend  just  mentioned  became  impracticable  as  the 
official  legend  of  the  order,  on  account  of  the  disgrace 
and  defection  of  Brother  Elias,  the  chapter  of  Genoa 
(1244)  issued  a  general  invitation  to  the  Minorites  to 
write  down  whatever  they  knew  of  the  life  of  Saint 
Francis,  and  submit  it  to  the  General  Crescentius  for 
the  compilation  of  a  new  legend."  Thirdly,  the  only 
piece  of  writing  that  has  come  down  to  us  as  a  result  of 
the  solicitation  of  the  chapter  of  Genoa,  the  Legenda 
Trium  Sociorum™  is  only  a  fragment.  It  recounts  the 
early  life,  the  conversion  and  the  ministry  of  the  Saint, 
down  to  the  year  1220,  in  great  detail;28  then  it  skips 

K  M.  Sabatier  has  already  begun  the  search  among  the  convent 
libraries  of  Belgium,  but  thus  far  with  little  success,  "  a  cause  de  la 
mauvaise  grace  rencontree  dans  les  couvents  ",  as  he  writes  me  in  a 
recent  letter. 

26  See  n.  22. 

21  Glassberger's  Cronica,  ad  ann.  1244,  in  Analecta  Franciscana,  Qua- 
racchi,  II,  68  (1889). 

28  See  n.  23. 

29  See  chs.  1-67. 


12  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

the  years  of  quarrel  between  the  zealots  and  the  party 
of  Elias,  and  ends  with  a  hasty  notice  of  the  death  and 
canonization  of  Saint  Francis.80  It  promises  in  the  Pro- 
logue to  relate  the  miracles  as  well  as  the  conversation 
of  the  Saint,  but  there  is  no  trace  of  miracles  in  the 
legend  as  we  have  it." 

Now  all  this  points  to  an  activity  of  parties  in  the 
earlier  decades  of  the  Franciscan  movement,  far  differ- 
ent from  the  atmosphere  of  monotonous  miracles  which 
envelops  Bonaventura's  official  legend.  We  find  the 
ascetic  "  companions  "  of  the  Saint,  Bernard  of  Quinte- 
valle,  Leo,  Angelo,  Rufinus,  Masseo,  Giles — men  who 
receive  no  mention  at  all  in  the  legends  of  Celano  and 
Bonaventura — in  decided  opposition  to  the  measures 
introduced  by  Elias  for  the  popularization  of  the  order. 
Their  norm  of  conduct  was  the  Rule  of  Saint  Francis 
sine  glossa,  which  Gregory  IX  in  his  bull  Quo  elongati 
( 1230)  "  interpreted  "  in  such  manner  as  to  exclude  the 
laxer  party  from  obeying  its  spirit,  while  they  observed 
all  the  while  its  letter."  Their  gospel  was  the  Testa- 
ment of  Saint  Francis,  which  the  same  bull  of  Gregory 

*•  See  chs.  68-73. 

31  There  have  been  two  notable  attempts  at  the  reconstruction  of  the 
Legenda  Trium  Sociorum  within  the  past  seven  years.  In  1899  two 
Roman  Minorites,  Marcellino  da  Civezza  and  Teofilo  Domenichelli,  pub- 
lished what  they  claimed  to  be  the  complete  text  of  the  legend,  re- 
translated into  Latin  from  the  publication  by  Melchiorri  (1856)  of 
an  old  Italian  translation  made  by  Achille  Muzio  di  San  Severino  in 
the  year  1577.  The  author  believes  this  translation  to  have  been  made 
from  a  manuscript  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Of  M.  Sabatier's  dis- 
covery and  publication  of  the  Speculum  Perfections,  in  1898,  as  the 
basis  of  the  Legend,  I  shall  speak  presently  in  the  text  of  this  essay. 
Sabatier,  as  recently  as  March,  1903,  recovered  fifteen  new  chapters 
of  the  Legenda  Trium  Sociorum.  See  Bibliographical  Note,  Appen- 
dix III. 

**  The  Spiritual  Franciscans  of  the  fourteenth  century  looked  back 
with  indignant  protest  on  this  "  betrayal  "  of  the  trust  of  St.  Francis. 
Ubertino  da  Casale,  in  his  Arbor  Vitae  Crucifixi,  a  mystical  work  pub- 
lished in  1305,  says:  "  Est  stupor  quare  quaeritur  expositio  super  lit- 
teram  [the  Rule  of  Saint  Francis]  sic  apertam  ";  V,  3. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS  13 

IX  declared  not  binding  on  the  order  at  large,  on  the 
irrelevant  ground  that  a  minister-general  could  not 
bind  his  successors — as  if  Saint  Francis'  relation  to  the 
order  were  analogous  to  that  of  John  Parenti  or  Elias !  " 
Their  manifesto  was  a  legend  (or  several  legends) 
whose  contents  were  mutilated  and  whose  circulation 
was  suppressed  by  ministerial  authority.*4 

M.  Sabatier,  in  a  magnificent  piece  of  critical  sifting 
of  a  sixteenth-century  source,  has  recovered  what  he 
claims  to  be  the  oldest  version  of  the  legend,  or  group 
of  legends,  of  Saint  Francis,  compiled  by  Brother  Leo 
in  1227  as  a  protest  against  the  incipient  extravagance 
of  Brother  Elias  and  his  followers.85  It  was  immedi- 
ately recognized  by  scholars  of  all  shades  of  opinion 
that  the  document  published  by  Sabatier  was  of  great 
importance  for  the  history  of  the  order.  A  spirited 
controversy  is  still  being  waged  over  it  by  the  cham- 
pions of  the  Conventual  Franciscans,  on  the  one  side, 
and  M.  Sabatier,  with  a  few  sympathetic  helpers,  on  the 

83  "  Ad  mandatum  illud  vos  dicimus  non  teneri  .  .  .  cum  non  habeat 
imperium  par  in  parem  "   (!).     Bull,  Quo  elongati,   1230. 

34  This   statement   refers   to    Bonaventura's   decree   of    1266.      But   M. 
Sabatier  ingeniously  suggests  that  even  the  Vita  Secunda  of   1246  may 
have  been  planned  with  the  same  end  in  view.     He  thinks  Celano  was 
chosen  by   Gregory   IX   as  a  sort  of  chairman  of  a  committee   to   sift 
and  order  the  material  brought  in,  in  response  to  the  invitation  of  the 
chapter  of  Genoa   (note  27),  and  to  destroy  the  "  dangerous  "  portions. 
"  Critical  Study  of  the  Sources  "  in  appendix  to  the  Life  of  St.  Francis 
of   Assisi,    Eng.   tr.,    p.    386.      The   view   is   not   supported   by   sufficient 
evidence  for  unreserved  acceptance;  but  it  is  a  very  tempting  hypothesis. 
See  Appendix  III. 

35  Speculum    Perfectionis,    seu    S.    Francisci   Assisiensis   Legenda   An- 
tiquissima,   auctore   Fratre   Leone,    Paris,    Fischbacher,    1898.      In   hunt- 
ing   for   the    lost   chapters    of    the   Legenda    Trium    Sociorum,    Sabatier 
analyzed  the  Speculum   Vitae  S.   Francisci,   published  at  Venice,    1504. 
Separating  from  this  very  uneven  composite  work  some  chapters  of  the 
Fioretti,  bits  of  St.   Francis'  own  works,   and  comments  on  the   Indul- 
gence of  the  Portiuncula,  Sabatier  reduced  his  source  to  118  homogene- 
ous chapters  which  he  believed  to  be  a  very  early  legend  of  the  Saint. 
The  Speculum  Perfectionis   (Cod.   Mazarinus,    1743)    was  found  to  con- 
tain  124  chapters,  of  which   116  correspond  to   Sabatier's   118   (!). 


14  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

other.  M.  Sabatier  has  met  the  attacks  of  the  orthodox 
Franciscans  with  patient  respect,  and  replied  to  them 
with  scrupulous  honesty  of  scholarship.36  He  may  have 
yielded  rather  hastily,  in  his  enthusiasm,  to  the  temp- 
tation of  declaring,  with  too  little  qualification,  the  time 
and  motive  of  the  composition  of  the  document,37  but  he 
has  shown  beyond  reasonable  doubt  that  the  Speculum 
Perfectionis  is  built  up,  in  its  present  shape,  on  the 
earliest  and  most  valuable  legendary  material  of  the 
Saint  that  we  possess  (sayings  of  early  companions, 
cedulae  and  rotuli  of  Brothers  Leo  and  Angelo,  etc.). 
It  is  the  elder  brother  of  the  Legenda  Trium  Sociorum, 
completing  that  valuable  but  fragmentary  source  in 
just  the  respect  most  needed — the  portrayal  of  the  re- 
ligious and  social  ideas  of  Saint  Francis.  The  Speculum 
Perfectionis  (or  its  ancestor)  may  have  been  sup- 
pressed by  Elias,  just  as  the  most  valuable  part  of  the 
Legenda  Trium  Sociorum  was  suppressed  by  Crescen- 
tius.38 

We  may  therefore  follow  the  line  back  from  Bona- 
ventura,  through  the  group  of  writings  called  out  by 
the  invitation  of  the  chapter  of  Genoa,  to  the  earliest 
legends  of  Thomas  of  Celano  and  Brother  Leo : 

LEGENDS  OF  THE  ZEALOTS  OFFICIAL  LEGENDS 

Rotuli  and  Cedulae  of  Brother  Leo,  I  Celano,  by 

as  original  of  the  Speculum  Perfectionis,  order  of  Gregory  IX 

(12.27)  and  Legenda  Vetus  (1229) 

I  I 

Legenda  Trium  Sociorum,  by  II  Celano,  by  order  of 
Leo,  Rufinus,  and  Angelo  (1246)   on  invita-    — ^-    Crescentius  (1247,) 

tion  of  Chapter  of  Genoa  (1244)  (revision  of  Leg.  Trium  Soc.  ?) 


Legend  of  Bonaventura,  1261 

(Written  by  order  of  Chapter  of  Narbonne,  1260, 

approved,  1263,  made  official,  1266) 

36  Cf.  Revue  Histonque,  LXXV,  61-101. 
"  See  Bibliographical  Note,  Appendix  III. 
88  See  n.  34. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS  15 

In  addition  to  the  early  legends,  we  have  one  very 
valuable  source  for  the  history  of  the  Franciscan  zealots 
both  before  and  after  Bonaventura's  time  in  the  works 
of  an  Italian  Spiritual  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
Angelo  da  Clarino.  His  Epistola  Excusatoria,  pre- 
sented to  Pope  John  XXII  in  1317,  and  his  Historia 
Septem  Tribulacionum  Ordinis  Minorum,  written  about 
1330,  are  both  apologies  for  the  orthodoxy  and  orderli- 
ness of  the  Spiritual  party  in  the  midst  of  persecution 
through  its  whole  existence.39  The  first  four  of  the 
Tribulations  deal  with  the  years  anterior  to  the  Parisian 
decree  of  1266. 

The  picture  which  we  get  from  all  these  sources  of 
the  early  history  of  the  brothers  of  the  stricter  observ- 
ance of  the  Rule  and  Testament  of  Saint  Francis  is  that 
of  a  protesting  minority  rather  than  a  revolting  faction. 
They  have  not  yet  thought  of  a  separate  order,  but  only 
of  a  purified  order.  They  have  not  developed  a  the- 
ology ;  for  their  whole  creed  has  been  obedience  to  the 
ideal  of  poverty  as  pursued  by  their  master.  They 
have  endured  persecution,  not  because  they  boldly  ad- 
vanced to  champion  new  heresies,  but  because  they  re- 
fused to  drift  with  the  tide  of  prosperity  and  accept  the  / 
standard  of  life  prescribed  for  them  by  the  pope  and 
his  advisers.  Wherever  we  open  the  story  of  the  early 
persecutions  we  find  the  same  tale;  the  zealots  protest 
against  the  violence  and  extravagance  of  Elias  and  are 
shut  up  in  prison ; 40  they  make  up  a  committee  of 
seventy-two  to  carry  their  complaints  of  Crescentius' 

33  Both  published  by  Ehrle  in  A.  L.  K.  G.,  I  and  II  (except  the  first 
two  Tribulations).  Dollinger's  text  in  the  Beitrage  zur  Sektenge- 
schichte  des  Mittelalters,  Munich,  1890,  II,  417-427,  is  very  unsatis- 
factory; whole  pages  are  wanting. 

40  Subject  of  the  second  Tribulation.  Outlined  only  in  Angelo  da 
Clarino's  Hist.  Trib.,  Ehrle,  A.  L.  K.  G.,  II,  120. 


16  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

mismanagement  of  the  order  to  the  pope,  but  are  antici- 
pated by  the  machinations  of  Bonadies,  and  sent  in 
pairs  into  distant  exile ; 41  they  rally  to  the  support  of 
John  of  Parma,  but  only  to  see  their  champion  deposed 
and  escaping  by  a  hair's  breadth  the  prisoner's  cell.42 
It  was  a  prolonged  moral  struggle43  for  supremacy 
between  the  party  of  accommodation  to  prevailing 
ecclesiastical  standards,  and  the  party  of  uncompro- 
mising fidelity  to  the  lofty  ideal  of  self-abandonment 
and  self-emptying  which  was  set  up  by  the  Poverello. 
The  party  of  accommodation  won  when  they  overthrew 
John  of  Parma,  and  they  clinched  their  victory  by  the 
Parisian  decree  of  1266. 


The  history  of  the  Spiritual  party  under  the  suc- 
cessors of  Bonaventura  presents  a  considerable  contrast 
to  that  of  the  early  zealots.  It  is  a  story  of  schism  and 
rebellion  in  the  order,  of  compromising  relations  with 
heretical  sects,  and  of  warfare  with  the  Roman  curia. 
We  have  to  do  here  with  several  quite  distinct  groups 
of  zealots  in  Provence,  Umbria,  Tuscany,  the  March  of 
Ancona,  Sicily,  and  Naples,  which  were  not  bound  to- 
gether organically  or  even  intimately  associated  with 
each  other.  Strict  observance  of  the  Rule  of  Saint 
Francis  was  the  only  common  bond  of  these  groups. 
On  the  questions  of  attitude  to  the  pope,  of  obedience 
to  the  heads  of  the  order,  of  purity  of  Catholic  doctrine, 
there  was  considerable  diversity.  It  is  necessary,  there- 
fore, to  treat  distinctly  the  various  groups  of  zealots 
after  Bonaventura's  time. 

41  Subject  of  the  third  Tribulation.     A.  L.  K.  G.,  II,  256-271. 

42  Subject  of  the  fourth  Tribulation.     A.  L.  K.  G.,  II,  271-289. 

43  Even    the    first    Tribulation    (1220-1226)    is    described   by   Angela    as 
"  secretum  schisma  et  magna  dissentio  ",  Ehrle,  loc.  cit. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS  17 

OUT  primary  source  here  again  is  the  Historia  Tri- 
bulacionum  of  Angelo  da  Clarino,  which  grows  more 
extensive  and  explicit  as  it  approaches  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  deals  with  events  in  the  author's  own 
memory.  Furthermore,  we  have  the  works  of  Petrus 
Johannis  Olivi,  the  chief  of  the  Provencal  group  of 
zealots,  and  the  dossier  of  the  proceedings  against  Olivi 
and  his  followers  at  the  Council  of  Vienne  (1310- 
1312)  ;  voluminous  bulls  and  constitutions  of  Pope 
John  XXII,  directed  against  the  refractory  brothers 
of  Provence  and  Italy;  and  the  documents  relating  to 
the  quarrel  between  John  XXII  and  the  schismatic 
Michaelists.44  The  various  chronicles  and  annals  of  the 
order  (especially  Wadding's)  have  saved  us  many 
scattered  notices  of  the  Spirituals  not  found  in  the  con- 
tinuous sources. 

We  shall  now  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  Spiritual 
Franciscans  in  their  various  groups  from  the  close  of 
Bonaventura's  generalate  (1274)  to  the  extinction  of 
the  schismatic  Parfiisser,  who  deserted  the  pope  for 
Lewis,  the  "  cursed  Bavarian  ". 

44  Olivi's  writings  are  published,  together  with  a  sketch  of  his  life, 
by  Ehrle  in  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  409-540.  The  documents  of  the 
tribunal  of  Clement  V  are  in  the  same  author's  "  Zur  Vorgeschichte  des 
Concils  von  Vienne  ",  ib.,  II,  353-374,  III,  1-196.  John  XXII's  decretals 
in  Extravagantes  Johannis  XXII,  Corpus  Juris  Canonici,  Friedberg,  1881, 
II.  The  documents  relating  to  the  quarrel  over  poverty,  in  Karl  Miiller's 
Der  Kampf  Ludwigs  des  Bayern  mil  der  romischen  Curie,  Tubingen, 
1879. 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  THE  MARCH  OF  ANCONA. 

"  While  the  council  (of  1274)  was  being  celebrated 
at  Lyons,  a  rumor  arose  among  the  brothers  in  Italy, 
and  especially  in  the  province  of  the  March  of  Ancona, 
that  the  pope  wished  to  force  the  Minorites  and  the 
Brothers  Preachers  to  receive  possessions  and  hold 
them  in  their  own  right.  This  news  was  received  with 
various  comments  among  the  brothers,  some  of  them 
deploring  the  fact  that  the  pope  should  conceive  such 
a  plan,  others  maintaining  that  the  brothers  at  large 
would  live  more  comfortably  and  peaceably  by  accept- 
ing the  decree,  and  that  innumerable  scruples  would  be 
lifted  from  their  hearts.1  The  discussion  of  the  matter 
waxed  warm,  threatening  to  divide  the  brothers  into 
two  irreconcilable  camps.  One  party  strenuously  main- 
tained that  the  pope  had  a  right  to  ordain  such  a  statute, 
and  that  it  was  every  brother's  duty  to  obey.  Their 

1  The  Rule  of  St.  Francis  contained  the  express  prohibition:  "  Unde 
nullus  fratrum,  ubicumque  sit  et  quocumque  vadat,  aliquo  modo  tollat 
nee  recipiat  nee  recipi  facial  pecuniam  aut  denarios  .  .  .  quia  non  de- 
bemus  maiorem  utilitatem  habere  et  refutare  in  pecunia  et  denariis 
quam  in  lapidibus ".  Regula  (1221),  cap.  8.  As  the  order  grew, 
however,  and  funds  became  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  churches 
and  convents,  Gregory  IX  (at  the  instigation  of  Elias?)  in  the  bull 
Quo  elongati  (1230)  virtually  abrogated  this  provision  of  the  Rule 
by  providing  agents  (nuncii)  who  should  receive  and  manage  all  moneys 
donated  to  the  order.  The  brothers'  hands  were  still  kept  from  the 
contaminating  touch  of  the  dejiarii,  but  the  flimsy  subterfuge  must  have 
seemed  a  mockery  of  honor  to  the  few  who  wished  to  observe  the 
Poverello's  commands. 

18 


SPIRITUALS  OF  THE  MARCH  OF  ANCONA      19 

opponents  said  (and  not  so  wisely)  that  the  pope  had 
no  right  to  change  a  statute  which  was  revealed  by 
God,a  confirmed  by  the  pontiffs  before  him,3  and  recom- 
mended by  the  lives  of  the  Apostles.  The  dispute  grew 
more  violent,  till  finally  the  men  who  were  for  obedience 
to  the  pope  above  all  else  clamored  for  proceedings 
against  their  opponents  by  a  diligent  inquisition,  to 
force  them  to  retract  their  erroneous  opinions." ' 

Such  is  Wadding's  account,  taken  almost  literally 
from  Angelo  da  Clarino,5  of  the  beginning  of  the  sys- 
tematic persecution  of  the  Spiritual  Franciscans.  The 
"  rumor  "  which  gave  occasion  to  the  rebellious  stand  of 
the  Italian  zealots  proved  baseless ; '  but  was  enough 
to  kindle  to  a  flame  the  smouldering  fires  of  protest  in 
the  souls  of  the  faithful  brothers  who  lived  in  the 
mountain-girt  convents  of  the  March  of  Ancona.7 

2  It   was   the   claim   of    St.    Francis   that   his   Rule   was   not   the   work 
of  human  wisdom,   but  a  revelation   from   God.     When   Pope  Honorius 
III,  in  1221,  attempted  to  get  him  to  modify  some  of  its  provisions,  he 
replied:    "  Pater  sancte,  ego  ista  verba  in  regula  non  posui,  sed  Christus  ", 
MS.  Laurentiana,  Codex  XX.     Compare  the  words  of  St.  Francis  in  his 
Testament:     "  Nemo  mihi  ostendit  quid  deberem  facere,   sed  Altissimus 
ipse  mihi  revelavit  ".     Wadding,  ad  ann.  1226,  no.  35. 

3  E.  g.,  Pope  Innocent  IV's  bull  Ordinem  Vestram,  1245. 

4  Wadding,  ad  ann.    1275,  no.  68.     The  fascinating  story  of  the  whole 
movement  has  been  published  by  Ehrle  in  the  A.  L.  K.  G.,  II,  301-327. 
My  indebtedness  to  Ehrle  appears  on  every  page  of  this  essay. 

"Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  48b.     Ehrle,  loc.  cit. 

s  It  may  have  started  from  an  extreme  interpretation  of  the  twenty- 
third  decree  of  the  Council  of  Lyons  (Mansi,  XXIV,  97):  "quod  nulla 
religio  mulierum  sustineatur  nisi  habeat  unde  possit  sustentari  in 
domo  sine  mendicitate  et  discursu  ". 

T  We  have  ample  proof  that  the  aggressive  party  of  zealots  in  the 
March  of  Ancona  antedated  by  more  than  twenty  years  the  Council  of 
Lyons.  The  Cronica  XXIV  Generalium  informs  us  anent  the  election 
of  Crescentius  (1244):  "Hie  generalis  senex  ingressus  est  ordinem  .  .  . 
qui  parum  post  factus  minister  Marchie  invenit  in  ordine  unam  sectam 
fratrum  non  ambulantium  secundum  Evangelii  veritatem  [sic!],  qui  se 
meliores  aliis  existimabant  ".  However,  we  have  no  notice  of  the  "  sect  " 
till  after  the  Council  of  Lyons. 


20  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

Angelo  da  Clarino  himself  was  one  of  these  brothers, 
and  his  chronicle  here  takes  on  the  completeness,  the 
vividness,  the  accuracy  of  the  man  who  is  writing  of 
what  be  has  experienced  among  his  closest  friends  and 
compatriots.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  the  whole 
literature  of  the  medieval  church  a  tale  more  varied  and 
exciting  than  that  of  the  persecution  of  these  Spirituals 
of  the  March  of  Ancona. 

The  inquisition  demanded  by  the  papal  party  was  es- 
tablished, and  some  of  the  most  influential  zealots,  re- 
maining obstinate  in  their  single  attachment  to  the  Rule 
of  Saint  Francis,  were  committed  to  prison.  A  reign  of 
terror  was  instituted.  Criticism  of  the  acts  of  terror 
was  interdicted  on  pain  of  fresh  torture.  The  chiefs  of 
the  party  (Angelo,  Liberate,  Thomas  of  Tollentius) 
were  kept  in  prison  until  the  election  of  Raymundus 
Gaufridi  as  minister-general  in  1289.  Gaufridi  was  in 
thorough  sympathy  with  the  zealots.8  He  liberated  the 
imprisoned  men,  and,  at  their  own  urgent  request,  sent 
them  on  a  mission  to  King  Haiton  of  Armenia,  far 
from  the  persecution  of  the  jealous  brothers  of  the 
laxer  observance.'  But  hatred  followed  them  even  be- 
yond the  seas.  The  brothers  of  the  province  of  Syria 
(one  of  Saint  Francis'  earliest  conquests)  compelled 
their  minister  to  send  a  "  slanderous  letter  "  to  the  King 
of  Armenia  and  to  the  Minorites  in  his  realm,  in  which 
the  little  group  of  missionaries  were  accused  of 
apostasy,  schism,  and  heresy.  The  noble  king  refused 

8  Like  John  of  Parma,  Gaufridi  was  obliged  to  resign  (1295)  by  the 
pope  (Boniface  VIII).  He  later  began  the  defence  of  the  Spirituals 
before  Clement  V's  tribunal  (1310),  but  died  before  the  case  was  finished. 

•  When  Gaufridi  was  told  why  the  zealots  were  in  prison  he  exclaimed, 
"  Utinam  omnes  nos  et  totus  ordo  tails  criminis  noxa  tenereturl"  Hist. 
Trib.,  fol.  503. 


SPIRITUALS  OF  THE  MARCH  OF  ANCONA      21 

to  be  prejudiced  against  his  visitors,  but  the  hatred  of 
the  Syrian  brothers  became  so  keen  that  Liberate  and 
his  group  deemed  it  best  to  return  to  Italy  and  seek 
exculpation  and  protection  from  the  minister-general 
of  the  order.  The  animus  of  the  Italian  brothers 
against  them  was  intense.  When  Liberate  and  Angelo 
sought  a  resting-place  in  their  own  province  of  the 
March,  until  they  could  get  an  audience  with  the  gen- 
eral, they  were  rudely  repulsed  by  the  vicar  of  the 
province,  who  declared  that  he  would  "  rather  receive 
and  shelter  a  band  of  fornicators  in  his  province  than 
these  two  men  ".10 

In  less  than  a  year  after  the  return  of  the  missionaries 
from  Armenia,  however,  an  event  happened  which  sud- 
denly raised  the  zealots  from  a  position  of  precarious 
vagrancy  to  one  of  secure  power.  The  papal  conclave, 
after  two  years  of  wrangling  between  the  creatures  of 
the  French  king,  led  by  the  Colonnas,  and  the  Italian 
"  patriots  ",  led  by  the  Orsini,  in  a  transport  of  apparent 
reconciliation  chose  for  the  supreme  lord  of  Christen- 
dom a  decrepit  eremite  monk,  Peter  of  Morro.  The 
splendid  train  of  cardinals  and  archbishops  filed  up  the 
steep  mountain  side  of  the  Abruzzi  to  his  lowly  hermit- 
age, and  hailed  the  unwilling  monk  as  the  successor  of 
Saint  Peter.  Resistance  was  vain ;  and  the  hermit  came 
down  to  Rome  as  Pope  Celestin  V. 

It  was  all  a  sham  and  a  pageant.  Celestin  V  was  only 
a  pawn  in  the  game  played  by  the  astute  Cardinal 
Benedetto  Gaetani  to  keep  the  Colonnas  out  of  power. 
In  a  few  months  another  move  was  made  on  the  chess- 
board of  Italian  politics.  The  pawn  was  sacrificed 

10  Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  sab. 


22  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

"  Persuaded  "  by  Gaetani  to  resign — an  act  unprece- 
dented in  the  history  of  the  papacy — the  poor  old 
hermit  willingly  confessed  before  the  assembled  digni- 
taries of  the  church  his  inability  to  rule  as  pope,  and 
retired  in  favor  of  the  Cardinal  Gaetani  himself,  that 
famous  Boniface  VIII,  who  "  came  in  like  a  fox,  ruled 
like  a  lion,  and  died  like  a  dog  ". 

Celestin  V  was  naturally  a  patron  of  the  brothers  of 
the  stricter  observance,  and  he  was  besides  a  friend  of 
Liberato's.  Therefore  the  minister  Gaufridi,  unable  to 
protect  the  zealots  himself,  sent  them  to  Celestin.u  The 
pope  did  for  them  all  they  asked,  and  more.  He  com- 
mended their  purpose  to  live  strictly  by  the  Rule  of 
Saint  Francis,  absolved  them  from  all  obedience  to  the 
authorities  of  the  order,  gave  them  the  name  of  "  Poor 
Hermits  of  Celestin ",  appointed  Brother  Liberate  as 
their  head  and  Cardinal  Napoleone  Orsini  as  their 
protector  in  the  curia,  and  assigned  them  several  her- 
mitages of  the  Celestinian  Benedictines. 

But  a  sudden  reversal  of  fortune  came  when  Celestin 
V  left  the  chair  of  Saint  Peter's,  December  13,  1294. 
Boniface  VIII  immediately  declared  all  the  acts  of  his 
predecessor  which  were  not  approved  by  himself  null 
and  void  (April  8,  1295).  Naturally,  the  favors 
granted  by  Celestin  to  the  zealots  of  the  March  had  not 
been  approved  by  Boniface.  The  condition  of  Liberate 
and  his  companions  was  worse  than  before  Celestin's 
accession.  Then  they  had  been  only  a  disaffected,  pro- 
testing, persecuted  minority ;  now  they  were  schis- 

u  "  Interea  fratre  petro  de  Morrone  ad  pontificatum  assumpto,  placuit 
generali  ministro  et  omnibus  principalioribus  fratribus  in  quibus  Christus 
et  eius  spiritus  inhabitare  firmiter  credebatur,  quod  ad  sanctum  pontificem 
frater  Petrus  de  Macerata  et  eius  socius  [Angelo?]  succederent."  Hist. 
Trib.,  fol.  52b. 


SPIRITUALS  OF  THE  MARCH  OF  ANCONA      23 

matics.  They  had  abjured  the  name  of  Franciscans, 
and  consequently  forfeited  all  claim  to  the  protection 
of  the  order.  It  was  a  rash  deed,  and  the  punishment 
was  severe;  but  we  may  learn  how  sorely  they  were 
tempted  to  the  deed  by  the  fact  that  eighteen  years 
later  their  brothers  in  Tuscany  were  not  deterred  by 
their  fate  from  repeating  their  act  of  defiance,  in  the 
face  of  bitter  persecution. 

According  to  the  narrative  of  Angelo  da  Clarino,  the 
Minorites  began  their  persecution  of  the  Poor  Hermits 
of  Celestin  even  before  Celestin's  abdication.  They 
"  sharked  up  a  list  of  lawless  resolutes  ",u  and  hunted 
them  with  violence.  After  Celestin  had  made  lo  gran 
rifiuto,  there  was  small  chance  for  help.  The  schis- 
matics fled  to  an  island  (quaedam  parva  insula)  some- 
where in  the  east,  where  they  hoped  to  escape  the  notice 
of  their  pursuers.  But  the  Minorites  at  home  were  im- 
placable. They  accused  the  fugitives  of  the  worst 
heresy  of  the  age,  Manicheism,  and  subjected  them  to 
an  inquisition.  When  this  failed  to  bring  them  to 
punishment,  their  enemies  appealed  to  Boniface  VIII, 
through  the  minister-general  John  of  Murro,  who  had 
the  pope's  ear.  Boniface,  finding  that  the  only  offence 
justly  charged  against  the  zealots  was  their  extreme 
devotion  to  the  Rule  of  Saint  Francis,  replied  to  their 
persecutors,  "  Let  them  alone,  for  they  serve  God  better 
than  you  "."  Then  the  wily  accusers  played  their  trump 
card.  "  Holy  Father  ",  they  cried,  "  these  men  are 
heretics  and  schismatics,  who  are  preaching  throughout 
the  world  that  you  are  not  rightfully  pope,  and  many 

a  Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  533:  "  Stipendio  conducunt  catervam  bominum  mun- 
danorum  ". 

"  "  Sinite  eos  servire  Deo,  quia  ipsi  faciunt  melius  quam  vos  facitis." 
Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  530. 

3 


24  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

such  things  ".  Boniface  could  bear  least  of  all  things 
to  have  the  legitimacy  of  his  office  called  into  question, 
especially  at  a  time  when  his  relations  with  the  two  most 
powerful  kings  of  Europe,  Philip  the  Fair  of  France 
and  Edward  Longshanks  of  England,  were  strained  to 
the  breaking  point.14  The  accusation  was  effective. 
Boniface  issued  a  letter  of  condemnation  against  the 
zealots,  and  committed  their  punishment  to  the  Patri- 
arch of  Constantinople  and  the  Archbishops  of  Athens 
and  Patras.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Spirituals  under 
the  lead  of  Liberate  and  Angelo  were  innocent  of 
sedition  against  Boniface  VIII,  though  they  looked 
with  disfavor,  quite  naturally,  on  his  assumption  of  the 
tiara."  Their  whole  object  was  the  peaceable  enjoy- 
ment of  independence  in  the  observance  of  the  Rule  of 
Saint  Francis.  Italy  was  full  of  religious  vagabonds, 
however,  at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,1'  who 
generally  combined  a  social-political  purpose  (the  herit- 
age of  Arnold  of  Brescia)  with  their  religious  vagaries. 
It  was  inevitable  that  the  extremists  among  the  Spiri- 
tual Franciscans,  in  whose  eyes  a  regimen  that  was  not 
to  be  approved  was  no  more  to  be  tolerated,  should 

14  "  Nihil  aegrius  audiebat  Bonifacius  quam  vel  levissime  de  sua  auc- 
toritate  et  canonica  electione  dubitari,  eo  praesertim  tempore  quo  Gal- 
lorum  rex  Philippus  Pulcher  aspere  et  temere  nimis  hoc  vulnus  frica- 
bat."  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1302,  no.  7. 

ls  When  subjected  to  the  Inquisition  under  the  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople in  1299  it  was  found  that  they  prayed  for  Boniface  as 
pope,  and,  when  persecuted  beyond  endurance  in  their  Eastern  refuge, 
they  sent  messengers  with  their  letters  of  apology  to  Pope  Boniface. 
Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  S4b.  The  disposition  of  the  Spirituals  toward  Boniface 
personally,  however,  may  be  seen  in  the  savage  poems  of  execration 
addressed  to  him  by  Jacopone  da  Todi.  Cantu,  Eretici  d'ltalia,  I,  129  ff. 

16  Compare  Boniface  VIII's  orders  to  all  bishops  in  1296-1297  to  reduce 
the  Bisochi  to  submission,  and  compel  them  either  to  enter  some  ap- 
proved order  (Lateran  Council  of  1215)  or  lay  aside  their  religious 
habits.  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages,  III,  37. 


SPIRITUALS  OF  THE  MARCH  OF  ANCONA      25 

coalesce  with  these  violent  "  reformers  ".  In  fact,  we 
find  a  group  of  them  in  1297  proceeding  to  the  election 
of  a  new  Celestin  as  pope  in  Saint  Peter's,  a  certain 
Brother  Martin  of  Bodici,  from  Provence.  The  in- 
quisitors soon  hunted  the  unfortunate  pope-makers  out 
of  the  neighborhood  of  Rome.  The  latter  took  refuge 
in  Sicily — a  land  which  seems  to  have  been  as  popular 
an  asylum  for  religious  exiles  since  the  days  of  Fred- 
erick II  as  was  England  for  the  political  exiles  of  the 
nineteenth  century." 

But  to  return  to  Liberate  and  his  group.  After  try- 
ing in  vain  to  escape  the  persecution  encouraged  by 
Boniface's  letter  of  condemnation,  they  decided  to  make 
another  plea  before  the  pope.  Their  letters  were  inter- 
cepted by  the  Minorites.  As  a  last  resort,  Liberate  him- 
self started  for  Italy,  to  defend  the  zealots  in  person  at 
the  Roman  court.  But  Boniface  died  (October  n,  1303) 
before  Liberate  reached  him.  The  leader  of  the  Spiri- 
tuals then  fixed  his  hopes  on  Boniface's  successor, 
Benedict  XI,  to  whom  he  was  introduced  in  Perugia 
in  the  early  summer  of  1304."  But  hope  was  again 
deceived.  Benedict  died  in  July,  and  the  French  and 
Italian  parties  began  anew  their  wrangle  over  the  suc- 
cession to  the  tiara.  After  a  vacancy  of  eleven  months 
the  French  bishop,  Bertrand  of  Bourges,  was  chosen 
pope,  and  enthroned  as  Clement  V.  He  was  pledged  to 
Philip  IV  of  France  as  completely  as  any  modern  can- 
didate is  pledged  to  his  party  boss.  Liberate  again 
started  for  Rome  to  plead  his  case  before  the  pope,  but 
again  the  shadow  of  death  stood  between  him  and  his 

11  Jordanes,  Cronica,  236,  3,  in  Muratori,  Antiquitates,  XI,  766. 
M  The  visit  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Hist.  Trib.,  but  Angelo  speaks  of 
it  in  his  Epistola  Excusatoria,  fol.  1480  (A.  L.  K.  G.,  I.  531). 


26  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

desire.  He  was  stricken  with  a  mortal  illness  on  his 
way. 

Meanwhile  Angelo  marshalled  the  brothers  in  the 
east,  and  brought  them  back  to  Italy.  Angelo  himself 
found  favor  with  Cardinal  Orsini.  His  followers,  after 
a  searching  examination  into  their  orthodoxy  by  Isnard, 
at  Rome,  constituted  themselves  into  the  congregation 
of  "  Clarines  "  in  the  March  of  Ancona.  They  were 
never  free  from  persecution.  Such  of  the  Celestins  as 
were  taken  by  the  inquisitor  Thomas  of  Aversa,  in 
Naples,  were  put  to  dreadful  tortures  under  the  name  of 
Lombard  heretics  of  the  sect  of  Dolcino." 

The  sources  fail  us  for  the  continuous  history  of  the 
Spirituals  of  the  March  after  the  first  decade  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  That  their  influence  was  consider- 
able we  know  from  scattered  notices  in  the  later  chron- 
icles. Rudolphus,  for  example,  a  chronicler  of  the 
strict  party,  calls  the  province  of  the  March  provincia 
stellata.20  The  group  of  Angelo,  on  the  whole,  pre- 
served itself  from  offensive  separatism.  It  is  to  this 
fact,  I  believe,  that  we  must  attribute  the  otherwise  in- 
explicable fact  that  Clement  V  expressly  allowed  the 
group  to  continue  free  from  the  discipline  of  the  order.21 

John  XXII,  however,  was  of  a  different  stamp  from 
the  "  mild  and  considerate "  (mitis  et  mansitetus) 
Clement  V.  He  was  determined  to  purge  the  Church 
of  every  trace  of  nonconformity.  In  1317,  notwith- 
standing the  elaborate  plea  of  Angelo  in  the  Epistola 

19  The  details  of  their  merciless  persecution  are  related  in  the  Hist. 
Trib.,  fols.  553-580. 

20  Quoted  by  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1289,  no.  34. 

21  "  Veni  igitur  ad  curiam  in  illo  anno  in  quo  concilium  viennense  cele- 
bratum  fuit  [opened  October  16,  1311],  et  propositum  est  meum  negotium 
et    sotiorum    domino    dementi    papae,    et    placuit   ei    quod   Domino   ser- 
viremus  in  statu  in  quo  eramus  "  («.  e.,  as  "  Poor  Hermits  of  Celestin  "). 
Epistola  Excusatoria,  fol.  1463. 


SPIRITUALS  OF  THE  MARCH  OF  ANCONA      27 

Excusatoria,  he  issued  the  decretal  Sancta  Romana, 
which  classed  together  under  a  sweeping  excommuni- 
cation "  all  those  who,  under  the  name  of  Fraticelli, 
Beghines,  Bizochi,  and  Brothers  of  the  Poor  Life,  in 
Sicily,  Italy,  and  France,  were  organizing  an  independ- 
ent order,  under  the  pretence  of  observing  strictly  the 
Rule  of  Saint  Francis,  receiving  multitudes  into  their 
sects,  building  or  accepting  as  gifts  fine  houses,  begging 
in  public,  and  electing  superiors  "."*  Angelo  did  not 
obey  this  decretal  of  John  XXII.  Taking  advantage 
of  the  pope's  nearer  and  more  serious  troubles  with  the 
Provengal  Spirituals,23  he  returned  to  his  brothers  in 
Italy,  and  continued  to  be  their  "  general "  until  his 
death  in  1337.  A  manuscript  discovered  and  published 
by  Ehrle  in  1888  u  contains  the  report  of  an  inquisition 
held  in  1334  in  the  province  of  Rome,  before  which 
several  of  Angelo's  followers  were  summoned  as  Fra- 
ticelli. From  this  report  it  appears  that  the  sect  re- 
garded Angelo  as  their  "  minister-general  ",  that  there 
were  under  him  several  "  guardians  ",  that  his  secretary 
(socius)  visited  the  various  brotherhoods,  that  he  him- 
self, as  general,  sent  out  letters  commanding  obedience, 
and  that  the  sect  observed  strictly  the  Rule  and  Testa- 
ment of  Saint  Francis,  and  looked  for  the  advent  of  a 
Spiritual  pope.26 

Wadding  in  his  Annales  Minorum  gives  us  a  full  ac- 
count of  the  work  of  the  later  Spirituals  of  the  March, 

21  Extravagantes  Johannis  XXII,  tit.  VII,  Friedberg,  loc.  cit. 

23  See  chapter  III. 

14  Vat.  Cod.  4029. 

«  Ehrle,  A.  L.  K.  G.,  IV,  8  ff.  I  quote  a  bit  to  show  the  flavor  of  the 
document:  "  Interrogatus  quis  est  generalis  eorum  respondit  quod  est 
frater  Angelus  Clarani  de  Fossabruno  [sic!]  .  .  .  item  dixit  quod  dictus 
frater  Angelus  scripserit  sicut  generalis  ipsis  fraticelli  morantibus  in 
loco  Poli."  MS.  Vat.  Cod.  4029,  fol.  7sb,  76. 


28  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

in  the  fourteenth  century  (John  de  Vallibus,26  Gentile 
da  Spoleto,"  Paolo  da'  Trinci 28)  in  establishing  on  the 
basis  of  the  sectaries  of  Angelo  an  orthodox  community 
of  brothers  of  the  strict  observance,  which,  after 
various  quarrels  and  fruitless  negotiations  with  the 
order  at  large  (the  Conventuals),29  was  finally  recog- 
nized by  Leo  X  in  his  bull,  lie  et  vos  in  vineam  (May 
28,  1517)  .80  Their  history  lies  beyond  the  limits  of  this 
essay;  and  we  turn  our  attention  now  to  the  second 
group  of  Spiritual  Franciscans. 

28  Wadding,  ad  ann.   1334,  no.  24;  1343,  no.   10. 

27  Wadding,  ad  ann.   1350,  no.  16;  1355,  no.  i. 

28  Wadding,  ad  ann.   1368,  nos.    10-13. 

29  Wadding,  ad  ann.   1383,  no.  i;  1387,  no.  i;  1418,  no.  i. 

30  Wadding,  ad  ann.   1517,  no.  20. 


CHAPTER  III. 
THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE. 

It  will  aid  us  in  the  appreciation  of  the  Spirituals  of 
Provence  if  at  the  outset  we  bear  in  mind  certain 
marked  characteristics,  determined  by  geography  as 
well  as  by  history,  which  distinguish  them  from  their 
brothers  in  Italy.  The  southern  part  of  France  was  a 
region  peculiarly  susceptible  to  intellectual  revolution 
in  the  Midde  Ages.  Various  heresies  of  dogma  and 
vagaries  of  philosophy  made  their  way  from  the  east, 
across  the  Lombard  plain,  to  find  a  home  in  the  rich 
valleys  of  Provence  and  Languedoc.  The  fierce  Albi- 
gensian  crusade  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century  had  made  a  desert  of  the  land,  but  had  not  cured 
the  temper  of  its  inhabitants.  The  old  kingdom  of  Ray- 
mond of  Toulouse  harbored  heretics  in  abundance 
still  after  it  had  been  incorporated  into  the  orthodox 
realm  of  Louis  of  France. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  fact  of  the  social  condition 
of  southern  France  as  compared  with  Italy  in  the 
thirteenth  century  was  the  wide  diffusion  of  culture. 
The  land  had  been  receptive  to  the  first  voices  of  that 
early  humanism  which,  but  for  the  torture  of  men's 
bodies  by  the  Holy  Inquisition  and  the  torture  of  their 
senses  by  scholasticism,  might  have  put  the  work  of  the 
sixteenth  century  back  into  the  thirteenth.  The  re- 
mains of  the  literature  of  the  troubadours  and  satirists 
of  the  Middle  Ages  bear  witness  to  an  increasing 

29 


30  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

brotherhood  of  sanity.  The  religious  reformer  ap- 
pealed directly  and  confidently  to  the  people.  He 
entered  their  homes.  He  preached  in  their  wide  fields. 
The  hermitage  never  found  an  abiding-place  in  the 
plains  of  Provence,  but  rather  on  the  rough  sides  of 
the  Apennines  and  the  lonely  fastnesses  of  the  Abruzzi. 
In  Tuscany  and  the  March  of  Ancona  the  zelanti  drew 
apart  from  society  into  little  groups  and  brotherhoods. 
In  Provence  there  were  no  such  gilds  of  saints.  The 
leaven  of  the  zealots  pervaded  the  shops  and  kitchens  of 
the  country.  It  was  there  that  the  Spiritual  Fran- 
ciscans became  practically  amalgamated  with  the  lay 
sect  of  the  Beghines.  A  glance  at  the  records  of  the 
Inquisition  of  Toulouse1  shows  that  the  inquisitor 
found  the  democratic  heresies  of  the  vagrant  reformers 
wide-spread.  The  Spirituals  of  Provence  were  not  so 
much  a  sect  as  an  influence.  It  is  not  until  well  into  the 
fourteenth  century  that  we  can  trace  any  signs  of  or- 
ganization for  offence  or  defence  among  them. 

Again,  in  Italy  there  was  invariably  and  inevitably  a 
political  tinge  to  all  heresy  or  suspicion  of  heresy. 
There  was  the  pope  close  at  hand,  the  lord  of  large 
territories  and  the  master  of  armies.  Since  the  days  of 
the  Saxon  Ottos,  yes,  even  since  Charles  the  Great,  the 
tremendous  "  combine  "  or  conflict  between  emperor 
and  pope  had  controlled  the  fortunes  of  the  Italian 
towns  as  the  moon  sways  the  tides.  Heresy  in  Italy 
generally  meant  revolt  against  the  Roman  pontiff  and 
his  court.  It  expressed  itself  in  open  deed  rather  than 
in  covert  opinion,  and  was  dealt  with  as  a  practical 
political  problem  rather  than  a  speculative  theory.1 

1  Liber  Sententiarum  Inquisitionis  Tolosani,  ed.  Limborch. 

*  Note  the  example  of  Brother  Elias,  who,  when  removed  from  the 
generalate  by  Gregory  IX,  immediately  went  over  to  Gregory's  mortal 
foe,  the  Emperor  Frederick  II. 


THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE  31 

We  have  seen  how  the  crucial  moment  came  in  the 
career  of  the  zealots  of  the  March  of  Ancona,  not  when 
they  were  accused  of  Manicheism,  but  when  they  were 
charged  with  denying  the  legitimacy  of  Boniface's 
accession  to  the  papacy.  So  we  shall  see  in  the  next 
section  how  quick  the  Tuscan  group  of  Spirituals  were 
to  draw  the  practical  logical  consequences  of  what  they 
considered  to  be  the  prejudgment  of  their  cause  by  the 
tribunal  of  Clement  V.  But  the  Spirituals  of  Provence 
were  not  quick  to  action.  They  had  no  political  temp- 
tation to  antagonize  the  pope.  It  was  not  until  John 
XXII,  at  the  instigation  of  Michael  of  Cesena,  forced 
them  to  fight,  by  declaring  it  a  heresy  to  wear  short 
gowns  and  condemn  granaries  and  wine  cellars,  that 
they  came  into  direct  conflict  with  the  Roman  court.1 
The  idolized  leader  of  the  Provencal  Spirituals,  Petrus 
Johannis  Olivi,  had  even  written  to  Conrad  of  Orfida, 
upbraiding  the  Italian  Spirituals  for  questioning  the 
legality  of  the  abdication  of  Pope  Celestin  V.4 

The  dominant  influence  of  Petrus  Johannis  Olivi, 
just  named,  was  the  third  distinguishing  mark  of  the 
Spirituals  of  Provence.  This  remarkable  person  was 
not  only  the  stalwart  champion  of  the  strict  observance 
of  the  Rule  and  Testament  of  Saint  Francis  in  his  life, 
but  after  his  death  he  became  the  patron  saint  of  the 
Spirituals  of  Provence.  His  writings,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  testimony  of  one  of  his  most  noted  disciples, 
exceeded  by  seventeen  fold  the  Sentences  of  Peter  Lom- 
bard," were  held  in  almost  equal  reverence  with  Holy 

3  Bull   Quorundam   exegit  caecitas,  April   13,   1317.     Wadding,  ad  loc. 

4  Letter   printed  in  the  Historisches  Jahrbuch   der  Gorresgesellschaft, 
III,  657  ff. 

5  "  Et  sciat  sapientia  apostolica  quod  quantitas  librorum  fratris  Petri 
.  .  .  ascendit    plus    quam    X    et    VII    vicibus    ultra    quam    textus    libri 
Sententiarum."      Ubertino    da   Casale's   apology   before   the   tribunal   of 
Vienne,  Codex  A  60,  fol.  iga.,  Chapter  library  of  Padua. 


32  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

Scripture.'  There  is  not  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  the 
Spiritual  Franciscans  of  Provence,  down  to  their  ex- 
tinction by  John  XXII,  that  is  not  at  the  same  time  an 
inquisition  over  the  writings  of  Olivi.  And  since  there 
was  a  great  deal  of  speculative  theology  in  those  writ- 
ings, the  case  of  the  Provencal  Spirituals  was  compli- 
cated by  questions  not  at  all  relevant  to  its  nature.  The 
enemies  of  the  party,  fortified  with  Olivi's  works,  were 
\  skilful  in  shifting  the  debate  from  the  ground  of  morals, 
where  the  zealots  really  stood,  to  one  of  dogma.  The 
Italian  Spirituals  had  many  leaders — Liberate,  Angelo 
da  Clarino,  Conrad  of  Ofnda,  Ubertino  da  Casale,  Ray- 
mundus  Gaufridi,  Tramundus  of  Tolentino — but  no 
"  uncanonized  saints  "  or  infallible  oracles.7  The  issue 
between  them  and  their  persecutors  was  kept  to  the 
practical  question  of  obedience  to  the  order  and  to  the 
pope. 

Our  sources  for  the  history  of  the  Spirituals  of  Pro- 
vence, while  far  more  numerous  than  those  for  the 
Italian  group,  are  far  less  satisfactory.  Angelo  da 
Clarino  treats  of  the  French  group,  to  be  sure,  in  the 
fifth  and  sixth  of  the  "  Tribulations  " ;  but  the  most 
cursory  reading  of  his  pages  is  enough  to  show  the  im- 
mense difference  between  them  and  the  account  of  the 
Spirituals  of  the  March  of  Ancona.  Angelo  was  him- 

9  In  the  inquisition  of  1321  in  Toulouse  Olivi  is  characterized  as 
"  sanctus  non  canonizatus  .  .  .  quern  Deus  canonizaverat  in  vita  et  in 
morte  ".  Lib.  Sent.  Inq.  Tolas.,  ed.  Limborch,  p.  319. 

T  A  letter  from  Angelo  da  Clarino  written  from  Avignon  to  his  con- 
freres in  Italy  describes  the  immense  concourse  of  clergy  and  people 
that  flocked  to  Olivi's  tomb  at  Narbonne  on  the  day  of  his  "  feast  " 
(March  14,  1313).  It  was  "  not  less  than  what  was  customary  at  the 
feast  of  Saint  Mary  of  the  Portiuncula ".  Published  by  Ehrle  (from 
MS.  Strozziana)  in  A.  L.  K.  G.,  I,  544.  John  XXII  ordered  the  bones 
of  Olivi  to  be  exhumed  and  his  sepulcher  with  its  votive  offerings  to  be 
destroyed.  Ib.,  II,  293. 


THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE  33 

self  a  member  of  the  latter  group,  and  he  tells  the  story 
of  their  fortunes  in  a  direct,  continuous,  vivid  style, 
which  is  convincing  from  the  first  word  to  the  last.  His 
account  of  the  French  group,  on  the  other  hand — 
except  for  the  years  1317-1318,  when  he  himself  was 
one  of  those  under  examination  by  John  XXII  at 
Avignon — is  vague  and  rambling.  It  consists  of  a  few 
facts,  interspersed  with  mystic  disquisitions  on  the  Rule 
of  Saint  Francis,  appeals  to  God  to  judge  the  cause  of 
the  zealots,  laudations  of  Olivi,  miracles — in  a  word, 
padding.  It  is  the  work  of  a  man  who  realizes  that  he 
is  handling  a  subject  of  importance  enough  to  demand 
several  pages  more  than  he  has  the  material  at  hand  to 
fill.  Moreover  such  few  facts  as  Angelo  gives  concern- 
ing the  party  prior  to  1317  are  not  always  to  be  relied 
on.  For  example,  he  tells  us,8  in  a  rather  fabulous  vein, 
how  Olivi,  after  the  condemnation  of  a  part  of  his 
writings  by  the  Parisian  censors  in  1282,  made  his  way 
to  the  Minister-General  Bonagratia9  at  Avignon,  un- 
bidden, and  preached  before  him  with  such  power  and 
fervor  that  the  minister,  gladiatus  corde,  repented  of 
the  severe  measures  he  had  conceived  against  Olivi, 
and  shortly  afterward  gave  up  the  ghost!  Now  we 
have  from  Olivi's  own  hand  a  letter  of  self-justification 
written  in  1285  to  the  Parisian  censors,  in  which  he  tells 
us  how  he  had  tried  in  vain  to  get  the  ear  of  the 
authorities  to  exculpate  himself  from  the  errors  charged 
against  him.10  Such  a  triumph  as  that  at  Avignon  in 
1283,  recounted  by  Angelo,  must  have  put  an  end  to  the 
inquisition. 

»Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  43!). 

•  Bonagratia   Tielci,  minister-general   1279-1283,  not  to  be  confounded 
with  Bonagratia  of  Bergamo,  champion  of  the  "  lax  "  party  at  Vienne. 
10  Olivi's  letter  published  by  Ehrle  in  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  418. 


34  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

Except  for  pieces  like  the  letter  just  mentioned,  we 
have  nothing  to  take  the  place  of  Angelo's  continuous 
narrative.  Ehrle  has  published  a  number  of  these  pieces 
(most  important  of  which  are  an  Index  of  a  projected 
work  on  the  history  of  the  Spirituals  of  Provence  by 
Raymond  of  Fronciacho,  procurator  of  the  order,  and 
Ubertino  da  Casale's  defence  of  Olivi)  in  his  two  long 
articles  in  the  Archiv  entitled,  "  Zur  Vorgeschichte  des 
Concils  von  Vienne  ".u  Wadding  had  some  of  these 
documents,"  but,  like  Angelo,  he  did  not  have  the 
material  necessary  to  place  them  in  their  true  historical 
setting.  The  important  defence  of  Olivi  by  Ubertino 
da  Casale  before  the  tribunal  of  Clement  V,  for  ex- 
ample, Wadding  puts  back  into  the  year  of  Olivi's 
death  ( 1298),  thus  robbing  it  entirely  of  its  significance 
as  an  apology  before  the  head  of  the  Church,  and  reduc- 
ing it  to  a  private  funeral  panegyric."  At  the  same 
time,  the  annalist  has  full  and  accurate  information  on 
the  life  of  Olivi.14  For  Wadding  then,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  as  for  the  Spirituals  of  the  fourteenth, 
Olivi  completely  overshadowed  his  party. 

We  have  references  in  Fra  Salimbene's  Chronicle, 
that  masterpiece  of  medieval  gossip,  to  early  Spirituals 
and  Joachites  in  Provence;  and  also  scattered  notices 
in  the  collections  of  Baluze  and  D'Argentre,  and  the 
Liber  Sententiarum  Inquisitionis  Tolosanae. 

A  source  which  we  do  not  possess  deserves  mention 
among  these  fragments  for  the  value  it  will  have,  if 
ever  discovered  to  be  actually  in  existence.  That  is  the 

".4.  L.  K.  G.,  II,  353-416;  III,  1-195. 
11  Ad  ann.  1310,  no.  4. 

13  Ad  ann.  1297,  no.  36. 

14  Ad  ann.  1278,  no.  28;  1282,  no.  2;  1285,  no.  S>  I29O,  no.  10;  1292, 
no.  13;  1297,  nos.  33  ff. 


THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE  35 

collection  of  documents  by  Raymond  of  Fronciacho,  of 
which  we  have  mentioned  the  Index  in  the  preceding 
paragraph.  The  work  is  divided  into  five  parts,  as 
follows:  Part  i  (8  chapters)  discusses  the  Rule  of 
Saint  Francis  and  the  four  papal  "  interpretations  " 
of  the  same  in  the  thirteenth  century.18  Part  2  (46 
chapters)  contains  the  history  of  the  Provengal  Spiri- 
tuals up  to  Olivi's  time,  dr.  1275 — a  subject  on  which 
we  have  almost  no  information  at  all — and,  further, 
discusses  the  influence  of  Olivi  on  the  party  up  to  the 
time  of  the  summons  of  the  leaders  of  the  Spirituals  to 
Avignon  (1309)."  Part  3  (41  chapters)  is  devoted  to 
the  proceedings  at  Avignon  and  Vienne  (1309-1312). 
Part  4  (25  chapters)  treats  of  the  rebellion  and  pun- 
ishment of  the  Spirituals  of  Narbonne  and  Beziers 
(1314-1318).  Part  5  (18  chapters)  contains  the  his- 
tory of  the  Tuscan  group  of  Spirituals  (1312).  The 
Index  alone  to  this  collection  of  documents  occupies 
twenty-six  large  octavo  pages  of  fine  print.  What 
must  be  the  fulness  of  the  work  itself  which  "  roars  so 
loud  in  the  index"!  Was  it  ever  completed?  Does  it 
still  lie  undiscovered  in  the  corner  of  some  monastery? 
With  this  brief  notice  of  the  sources,  let  us  proceed 
to  the  history  of  the  Provengal  Spirituals.  The  tend- 
ency of  the  apologists  for  the  party  of  the  stricter 
observance  is  to  carry  the  party  as  a  well-defined  sect 
back  into  the  days  of  Saint  Francis  himself.  As  we 
have  seen  above,  however,  in  spite  of  such  manifestos 
as  the  Speculum  Perfections,  it  was  not  until  the 

15  By  Gregory  IX    (1230),   Innocent  IV   (1245),  Nicholas  III    (1279), 
and  Nicholas  IV  (1289). 

16  Raymond  most  unfairly  connects  the  Franciscan  zealots  with  the  old 
heretical  sects  of  Nicolaitans  and  Manicheans  as  well  as  with  the  recent 
Apostolicians  and  Waldensians,  in  this  part  of  the  Index. 


36  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  that  the  viri  spirituales 
began  to  be  distinguished  as  a  sect  within  the  order. 
The  generalate  of  the  zealous  John  of  Parma  (1247- 
1257)  was  naturally  a  period  of  rapid  incubation  of 
their  ideas.  It  was  then  that  the  hope  for  the  reform 
of  the  order  from  within  flourished ;  and  the  Joachitic 
prophecy  of  a  new  stage  of  religion,  in  which  the  viri 
spirituales  should  be  God's  instruments  in  the  conver- 
sion of  the  whole  earth,  was  revived,  retouched  to  fit 
the  Franciscan  order,  wilfully  misinterpreted  in  certain 
points,  and  launched  against  the  Church  of  the  day  in  a 
volume  which  created  more  commotion  than  any  other 
book  of  the  thirteenth  century:  namely,  the  Introduc- 
torius  in  Evangelium  Aeternuvn,  published  by  the  Fran- 
ciscan Gerhard  de  Borgo  San  Donino  at  Paris,  in  1254. 
The  book  was  exhibited  in  the  parvis  of  Notre  Dame, 
so  that  all  who  ran  might  read."  Brought  to  the  notice 
of  Pope  Alexander  IV  by  the  Parisian  theologians,  who 
were  hostile  to  the  Franciscans  on  account  of  a  dispute 
of  several  years'  standing  over  professorial  chairs,  the 
work  of  Gerhard  was  investigated  by  a  papal  commis- 
sion of  three  cardinals,  sitting  at  Anagni,  and  condemned 
as  heretical,  October  23,  1255."  The  Intro  duct  onus, 

"  It  is  mentioned  by  Jean  de  Meung  in  the  Roman  de  la  Rose  (verses 
11204  ff.)  as 

"  Ung  livre  de  par  le  grant  diable, 
Dit  1'Evangile  pardurable.  .  .  ." 

18  The  tempting  subject  of  the  relation  of  the  Introductorius  to  the 
Evangelium  Aeternum  of  Joachim  of  Flora,  "  the  abbot  gifted  with 
prophetic  soul  ",  is  not  germane  to  this  essay.  Joachim  has  been  interest- 
ingly treated  by  Renan  (Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1886,  vol.  LXV), 
Preger  (Kgl.  Bayer.  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften,  Munich,  1874),  Tocco 
(L'Eresia  nel  Media  Evo,  Florence,  1884),  and  Reuter  (Geschichtc  der 
religiosen  Aufklarung  im  Mittelalter,  1875);  but  best  of  all  by  Denifle 
(in  A.  L.  K.  G.,  I,  49-145),  who  not  only  discusses  with  great  acumen 
the  relation  of  the  Introductorius  to  Joachim,  but  prints  the  full  text  of 
the  protocol  of  the  commission  of  Anagni,  by  which  the  work  was  con- 
demned. 


THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE  37 

though  written  by  a  Franciscan  zealot,  was  by  no  means 
a  manifesto  of  the  Franciscans  (as  Reuter  tried  to 
prove  it),  even  of  those  Franciscans  who  cherished  the 
prophetic  views  of  Joachim  of  Flora.  Salimbene,  for 
example,  was  a  confessed  Joachite ;  and  yet  he  speaks  of 
Gerhard's  work  in  scathing  terms  of  censure,"  and  wit- 
nesses to  its  baneful  effects  on  the  order.10  Further- 
more, the  terms  of  Alexander  IV's  condemnation  make 
clear  that  he  did  not  hold  the  order,  or  any  considerable 
part  of  it,  responsible  for  Gerhard's  impudent  book." 
The  episode  served  to  bring  the  question  of  the 
Joachitic  prophecies  into  the  foreground,  however; 
and  their  influence  was  discovered  to  be  so  potent 
among  the  Provencals  that  the  provincial  Council  of 
Aries  ( 1262  or  later)  saw  fit  to  condemn  the  writings  of 
the  Calabrian  abbot  en  bloc.2* 

The  next  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Spirituals  was  the 
Council  of  Lyons  (1274),  with  its  determined  attitude 
of  hostility  to  the  multiplying  groups  of  vagrant  mendi- 
cants, who,  under  the  palladium  of  the  Franciscan 
name,  were  defying  the  orders  of  the  Lateran  Council 
of  1215.  We  have  already  seen  how  an  exaggerated 

M "  Excogitavit  fatuitatetn  componendo  libellum,  et  divulgavit  stulti- 
tiam  suam  propalando  ipsum  ignorantibus  fratribus.  Multas  falsitates 
contra  doctrinam  abbatis  Joachim  scripsit."  Salimbene,  Cronica,  ed. 
Parma,  1857,  pp.  102-233. 

M "  Occasione  istius  libelli  improperatum  fuit  ordini  et  Parisius  et 
alibi."  Ib.,  p.  102. 

"•"Quod  dicti  [Minores]  nullum  ex  hoc  opprobrium  nullamque  in- 
famiam  incurrere  valeant  .  .  .  et  obloquitores  et  aemuli  non  possint 
exinde  sumere  contra  ipsos  materiam  detrahendi."  Letter  of  Innocent  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  D'Argentre,  Coll.  Judic.,  I,  166. 

11  The  Council  condemned  the  "  libri  Concordantium  et  alii  libri 
joachitici  qui  a  majoribus  nostris  usque  ad  tempora  manserunt  intacti, 
utpote  latitantes  apud  quosdam  religiosos  in  angulis  et  a  nostris  doc- 
toribus  indiscussi  ".  Mansi,  Hist.  Cone.,  XXII,  1001.  Salimbene  has  an 
amusing  account  of  a  prior  reading  his  forbidden  Joachim  in  a  grape 
arbor  behind  the  convent. 


38  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

rumor  of  the  purposes  of  this  council  started  the  move- 
ment in  Italy  which  resulted  in  the  revolt  of  the 
Spirituals  of  the  March  of  Ancona  and  the  ultimate 
schism  of  the  "  Poor  Hermits  of  Celestin  "  from  the 
order.  In  Provence  the  influence  of  the  council  against 
the  Spirituals  was  more  than  balanced  by  the  contempo- 
raneous emergence  of  Petrus  Johannis  Olivi  as  the 
leader  of  the  zealots. 

Olivi,  born  in  1247,  and  educated  at  the  University 
of  Paris,  had  entered  the  order  (convent  of  Beziers) 
in  the  year  1260,  the  fatal  year  of  the  Joachitic  proph- 
ecies. He  immediately  distinguished  himself  by  his 
speculative  and  exegetical  writings.  In  1278  he  was 
called  to  account  for  some  unorthodox  sentences  in  a 
book  on  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  on  the  order  of  Minister- 
General  Hieronymus  Ascoli  (afterward  Pope  Nicholas 
IV)  he  burned  the  book.23  His  ascetic  writings,  which 
Wadding  says  were  even  then  inviting  a  schism  in  the 
order,24  seem  not  to  have  been  noticed  until  the  chapter- 
general  of  1282,  assembled  at  Strassburg,  accused  him 
of  "  publishing  a  great  deal  hostile  to  the  order  at 
large ".**  The  Minister-General  Bonagratia,  at  the 
behest  of  the  chapter,  went  to  Paris,  and  there  sum- 
moned a  commission  of  seven  chief  men  of  the  order  to 
examine  the  works  of  Olivi — a  suggestion  that  those 
works  had  already  reached  a  goodly  bulk."  The  results 

13  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1278,  nos.  27,  28.     Angelo,  Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  4ib. 

24  "  Tendebant  tune  alii  in  laxiorem  vitam  non  secundum  spiritum  .  .  . 
quibus  Petrus  sese  opposuit.  Alii  vero  ei  adhaerebant  et  vitam  vene- 
rantes  et  doctrinam  sequentes."  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1278,  no.  29. 

35  "  Accusatus  fuit  Petrus  quod  plurima  libere  nimis  contra  communi- 
tatem  ordinis  frequenter  proferret."  Ib.,  1282,  no.  2. 

M  The  source  for  the  commission  of  inquisitors  at  Paris  is  mainly  the 
Cronica  XXIV  Generalium,  edited  by  the  College  of  Saint  Bonaventura, 
Quaracchi,  vol.  III.  Angelo  fails  us  here  completely. 


THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE  39 

of  the  commission  were  embodied  in  a  scroll  containing 
thirty-two  passages  of  questionable  orthodoxy,  culled 
from  all  of  Olivi's  works.  The  scroll  was  supplemented 
by  a  letter  (the  famous  Litter  ae  sept  em  Sigillorum) 
in  which  were  twenty-two  positive  propositions  sub- 
mitted to  Olivi  for  subscription.  Olivi  concurred  in  the 
judgment  of  his  censors,  and  signed  the  letter  of  the 
seven  seals,  although  he  objected  that  the  heads  of  the 
order  were  confusing  their  disciplinary  powers  with 
inquisitorial  prerogatives.  He  justly  complained  in  his 
apology,  dated  from  Nimes  in  1285,  that  the  commis- 
sion spoke  with  all  the  finality  of  assurance  of  the 
Roman  pontiff  or  a  general  council.27  Olivi's  profession 
of  faith  satisfied  the  heads  of  the  order  for  a  time, 
apparently ;  for  we  find  him  appointed  as  lector  in  the 
convent  of  Santa  Croce  in  Florence  by  the  General 
Aquasparta  (1287-1289),  a  noted  Conventualist ; M  and 
transferred  by  Aquasparta's  successor  Raymundus 
Gaufridi  (1289-1295)  to  the  higher  place  of  lector  at 
Montpellier.  It  was  about  the  time  of  Olivi's  transfer 
to  Montpellier  that  the  persecutions  of  the  Spirituals 
of  Provence  began.29  At  the  next  following  chapter- 
general  of  Paris  (1292)  Olivi  appeared  and  argued  for 
the  strict  observance  of  the  Rule  of  Saint  Francis, 
coupled  with  obedience  to  Rome  and  to  the  order — a 
counsel  which  may  have  been  possible  of  observance 

27  "  Ac  si  omnia  ibidem  [»'.  e.,  in  the  letter  of  the  seven  seals]  contenta 
esset   mera   fides   aut    autentica   determinatio   romani   pontificis   vel   con- 
cilii  generalis  ",  says  Olivi  in  his  Apologia,  published  for  the  first  time 
by  Ehrle  in  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  418-421.     It  is  a  masterpiece  of  patient 
logic,  enough  alone  to  prove  Olivi  a  born  leader  of  thought. 

28  Aquasparta    is    contrasted    by    Dante    (Paradiso,    XII,     124)    with 
Ubertino  da  Casale,  the  former  as  "  fleeing  ",  the  latter  as  "  tightening  " 
the  Rule  of  St.  Francis. 

"  Cronica  XXIV  Generalittm,  ad  ann.  1290,  copied  by  Wadding  almost 
verbatim,  ad  ann.  1290,  no.  n. 


40  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

in  1292,  but  was  made  impossible  by  popes  like  Boniface 
VIII  and  generals  like  John  of  Murro.*0  Olivi  again 
satisfied  the  order  as  to  his  obedience,  and  was  left,  for 
all  we  know,  to  end  his  days  in  peace  (March  14,  1298). 
We  lose  sight  of  the  Spirituals  of  Provence  from 
Olivi's  death  until  near  the  close  of  the  first  decade  of 
the  fourteenth  century.  It  is  then  that  the  followers  of 
Olivi  begin  to  stand  out  as  a  well-defined  group.  They 
had  patiently  borne  the  continuous  persecution  of  the 
lax  majority  of  the  order  for  years,  when,  in  the  spring 
of  1309,  Arnold  of  Villanuova,  the  physician  of  Charles 
II  of  Sicily,  and  a  friend  of  the  party  of  the  strict  ob- 
servance, induced  his  royal  master  to  write  to  the 
minister-general,  demanding  a  cessation  of  the  unjust 
persecutions  in  Provence,  under  threat  of  appeal  to  the 
pope.M  This  letter,  coupled  with  a  petition  to  the 
burghers  of  Narbonne,  had  the  effect  of  bringing  the 
Provencal  zealots  before  Clement  V,  who  ordered  Ray- 
mundus  Gaufridi  (the  ex-minister-general),  Guido  of 
Mirepoix,  Ubertino  da  Casale,  and  others  to  draw  up 
a  statement  of  the  abuses  in  the  order  which  needed 
correction.  At  the  same  time  he  appointed  a  tribunal 
of  three  cardinals  to  hear  and  judge  the  case,  and,  since 
the  Spirituals  whom  he  had  called  upon  to  present  their 
case  were  exposed  to  annoyance  from  the  heads  of  the 
order,  he  issued  the  decretal  Dudum  ad  Apostolatus 

80  Raymond  of  Fronciacho  in  the  Index  mentioned  above  speaks  of  a 
letter  of  John  of  Murro  in  which  "  mandat  sectam  fratris  Petri  Johannis 
exstingui  et  sectatores  dispergi  ".  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  15.  Cf.  Hist.  Trib., 
fol.  47b. 

81 "  Tune  [after  Olivi's  death]  siluerunt,  latuerunt  et  abstentaverunt 
se  ex  iis  plurimi  [of  Olivi's  followers]  ruinam  gladii  persequencium 
non  ferrentes,  fueruntque  sub  pressura  donee  Deus  per  hominem  ama- 
torem  veritatis  Reinaldum  de  Villa  Nova  .  .  .  regem  induxit  ad  scriben- 
dum  litteras  efficaces  general!  ministro "...  Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  sgb. 


THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE  41 

(April  14,  1310),  exempting  the  Spirituals  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  order  during  the  investigations.82 

Ubertino's  indictment  of  the  order  was  scathing.  He 
detailed  twenty-five  abuses  against  the  Rule  of  Saint 
Francis  and  ten  more  against  Nicholas  Ill's  decretal 
Exiit  qui  seminat  (1279).  He  was  feebly  answered  in 
a  writing  signed  by  Minister-General  Gonsalvus,  Alex- 
ander of  Alexandria,  Bonagratia  of  Bergamo  and 
others.  Refutation  and  counter-refutation  followed, 
and  the  matter  resolved  itself  into  a  literary  debate 
between  Raymond  and  Bonagratia,  the  voluminousness 
of  which  may  be  judged  from  the  list  of  the  titles  of 
the  pamphlets,  preserved  in  Raymond  of  Fronciacho's 
Index? 

The  champions  of  the  Spirituals  demanded  nothing 
more  than  the  reformation  of  the  order,  but  their  op- 
ponents skilfully  shifted  the  argument  to  the  theological 
plane,  making  capital  out  of  the  earlier  suspicions 
against  the  writings  of  Olivi.84  They  picked  out  eight 
points  of  heterodoxy  (it  had  been  thirty- four  in  1283  !)  ; 
and  when  the  Spirituals  accused  them  of  treachery  to 
the  ideals  of  Saint  Francis,  they  replied  by  the  counter- 
charge of  rebellion  against  the  orthodox  faith.  With 
these  mutual  recriminations  the  matter  dragged  on  for 
two  or  three  years,  until  Clement  V  in  1312  issued  the 
bull  Exivi  de  Paradiso,  which  was  adopted  as  a  canon 
of  the  Council  of  Vienne  then  sitting.85  The  Exivi  was 
promulgated  as  the  final  adjustment  of  the  quarrel. 
As  it  stands,  it  contains  terms  very  favorable  to  the 

33  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1310,  no.  3. 

33  A.  L.  K.  G.,  II,  17,  26. 

**  See  n.  23,  above,  p.  38. 

35  For  the  whole  proceedings,  see  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1310,  nos.  1-8. 
The  bull  Exivi  is  printed  in  full  in  Melissanus  de  Macro's  supplement 
to  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1312. 


42  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

Spirituals,  proscribing  the  abuses  and  luxuries  in  the 
order  which  Ubertino  had  scored.  But  it  does  not,  as 
Angelo  da  Clarino  claims,38  allow  the  Spirituals  to  live 
apart,  exempt  from  the  discipline  of  the  order.  It  is 
impossible  that  Clement  V  could  have  countenanced 
anything  like  schism  in  the  order,  though  he  may  have 
ordered  the  dissenting  brothers  to  be  treated  kindly 
until  he  finally  remanded  them  (summer  of  1313)  to 
the  full  authority  of  the  general  and  the  ministers. 
Only  a  few  of  the  zealots  threatened  schism,  says  Wad- 
ding, sub  pallio  zeli.  They  all  finally  came  around  to 
obedience  and  some  even  did  penance  for  their  stubborn 
resistance :  "  dies  suos  pie  et  laudabiliter  in  religione 
terminarunt  ".3T  Considering  the  events  of  the  years 
1314-1318,  however,  this  view  of  Wadding's  appears 
rather  roseate. 

Clement  V's  Exivi  did  not  bring  the  desired  harmony. 
The  zealots  were  so  tenacious  of  their  case  and  so  fully 
intrenched  in  popular  favor  in  Provence,  that  Alex- 
ander of  Alexandria,  Gonsalvus'  successor  in  the  gen- 
eralate  (1313-1314),  thought  it  advisable,  while  hold- 
ing to  the  letter  of  Clement  V's  Exivi,  to  allow  the 
Spirituals  the  three  convents  of  Narbonne,  Beziers,  and 
Carcassonne,  with  the  further  indulgence  that  the  pre- 
lates assigned  to  them  should  be  always  personae 
gratae.3*  The  experiment  proved  a  signal  failure. 
Alexander  died  a  few  months  after  his  grant,  and  dur- 

36  Hist.  Trib.,  6sb,  66a.     Lea  thinks  that  the  Exivi  as  it  stands  may  be 
modified   from   its   original   tenor.     He  reminds  us  that  the   Canons   of 
Clement    V    were    delayed    for    revision    and    finally    published    by    John 
XXII  in  1317.     "That  they  underwent  changes  in  this  process  is  more 
than  probable  ",  says  Lea,  Hist.  Inq.  of  the  Middle  Ages,  III,  60. 

37  Wadding,  ad  ann.   1312,  no.   5. 

88 "  Volo,  inquit  [Alexander],  quod  vobis  dentur  prelati,  non  dis- 
plicibiles."  Deposition  of  a  brother  of  Narbonne.  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  159- 


THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE  43 

ing  the  long  vacancy  in  the  generalate  (which  coincided 
with  the  two  years'  vacancy  in  the  papacy  after  Clement 
V's  death)  the  convents  at  Narbonne  and  Beziers  be- 
came rallying-places  for  malcontents.  Wadding  has  a 
lively  passage  on  the  situation :  "  The  chair  of  Saint 
Peter  and  the  headship  of  the  order  of  the  Minorites 
being  vacant  for  a  long  time,  those  brothers  of  the 
stricter  observance  whom  a  little  while  before  Clement 
had  brought  back  to  the  bosom  of  the  order  separated 
from  their  brothers  with  rash  impatience,  and  one 
hundred  and  twenty  of  them,  with  the  help  of  certain 
lay  friends  (Beghines)  in  Provence,  ejected  the  pre- 
lates from  the  convents  of  Narbonne  and  Beziers.  They 
were  joined  by  many  of  the  Franciscans  of  the  stricter 
observance  from  other  provinces.39  The  citizens  of 
Xarbonne  and  Beziers  supported  them  zealously,  on 
account  of  their  devotion  to  the  memory  of  Petrus 
Johannis  Olivi."  " 

The  interregnum  in  the  order  and  the  papacy  was 
brought  to  an  end  in  1316  by  the  election  of  two  men  of 
uncompromising  severity  of  character,  Michael  of 
Cesena  and  Pope  John  XXII.  Both  were  determined,  in 
their  respective  offices,  to  recover  the  authority  which 
had  been  impaired  by  the  long  vacancy.  Michael  ad- 
dressed the  pope  immediately  on  the  subject  of  restor- 
ing unity  in  the  order.  He  sent  Raymond  of  Fron- 
ciacho  (the  author  of  the  Index}  and  Bonagratia  of 
Bergamo  (the  prosecutor  at  Vienne)  to  meet  John 

39  In  an  earlier  paragraph  Wadding  speaks  of  the  survivors  of  the 
dreadful  persecution  of  the  Italian  Spirituals  by  Boniface  VIII  and 
John  of  Murro,  who  had  fled  to  France  to  appeal  to  the  pope.  "  Mox  ad- 
haeserunt  aliis  fratribus  in  regione  Provincie  quos  viderunt  sui  zeli 
participes  et  a  communitate  ordinis  recessisse."  Ad  ann.  1307,  no.  4. 

*•  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1314,  no.  8. 


44  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

XXII  in  consistory  and  to  lay  before  him  five  petitions : 
first,  that  the  Fraticelli  be  punished;  second,  that  the 
brothers  who  had  fled  to  Sicily  *  be  reduced  to  obedi- 
ence; third,  that  Ubertino  da  Casale  be  imprisoned; 
fourth,  that  all  appeals  to  the  order  be  forbidden ;  and 
fifth,  that  the  Beghines  be  forbidden  to  assume  the 
garb  of  the  order  and  preach  their  heresies  under  cover 
of  the  Franciscan  name.42  The  petition  thus  called  for 
the  correction  of  the  Spirituals  and  their  allies  through- 
out the  whole  zone  of  disturbance  from  Provence  to 
Sicily.  It  was  the  word  of  a  man  who  intended  to  finish 
with  rebellion  once  for  all.  Angelo  da  Clarino,  who 
was  one  of  the  brothers  summoned  to  Avignon  as  a 
result  of  this  petition,  and  whose  Historia  septem  Tri- 
bulacionum,  consequently,  becomes  again  at  this  point 
a  source  of  the  first  value,  informs  us  that  the  petition 
was  made  up  almost  entirely  of  lies  and  slanders,  and 
that  "  the  supreme  pontiff  shuddered  at  the  grievous 
evils,  crimes,  and  heresies  which  the  community  set 
down  to  the  account  of  the  zealots  ",43 

John  XXIFs  response  to  the  petition  was  immediate 
and  cordial.  He  ordered  King  Frederick  of  Sicily  to 
apprehend  the  fugitives  in  his  kingdom,  and  commis- 
sioned Bertrand  of  Tours,  provincial  minister  of  Aqui- 
taine,  to  force  the  rebellious  brothers  of  Narbonne  and 
Beziers  to  conformity  and  obedience.44  When  the  Pro- 
vengal  zealots  refused  to  obey  Bertrand's  orders,  and 
presented  to  the  pope  a  petition  signed  by  forty  mem- 

41  See  chapter  IV  for  the  details  concerning  these  brothers. 

42  Index  of  Raymond  of  Fronciacho,  part  IV,  ch.  7.    A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill, 
27. 

«  Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  673. 

44  A  full  account  in  Wadding  (ad  ann.  1317,  nos.  9-14)  who,  besides 
Angelo's  source,  had  important  papal  documents  from  the  rich  archives 
of  Avignon. 


THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE  45 

bers,  John  summoned  them  to  Avignon  within  ten  days, 
on  pain  of  excommunication.45  "  About  the  Feast  of 
Pentecost  ",  says  Angelo,  "  sixty-four  *  brothers  from 
the  convents  of  Narbonne  and  Beziers  came  to  the 
supreme  pontiff.  They  did  not  turn  in  at  the  Francis- 
can convent,  but,  entering  the  town  of  Avignon, 
marched  directly  to  the  papal  palace  and  stood  all  night 
before  the  doors,  refusing  to  depart  until  the  pontiff 
gave  them  audience  ".  One  of  their  number,  Bernard 
Delicieux,  a  man  of  great  modesty,  astonishing  learn- 
ing, and  irresistible  eloquence,  set  forth  their  case  be- 
fore the  pontiff  and  his  cardinals  in  such  circumspect 
and  persuasive  speech  that  his  adversaries  despaired  of 
replying.  It  soon  became  evident  to  the  zealots  that 
their  case  was  prejudged,  and  that  they  had  been  sum- 
moned not  to  be  heard  in  defence  but  to  receive  their 
sentence.  Bernard  and  those  who  attempted  to  follow 
him  were  silenced  on  one  flimsy  pretext  or  another." 
Gaufridus  de  Cornone  was  the  victim  of  an  especially 
shameless  piece  of  bullying  by  the  pope.  John  was 
anxious  to  keep  this  eloquent  saint  from  talking  and, 
just  as  the  latter  was  about  to  begin,  interrupted  him 
with  the  irrelevant  remark,  "  Brother  Gaufridus,  I 
wonder  that  you  clamor  for  the  strict  observance  of  the 
Rule,  when  you  own  five  gowns  yourself  ". 

Gaufridus :  "  Holy  Father,  you  are  deceived ;  it  is 
not  true  that  I  own  five  gowns,  saving  your  reverence." 

45  Index  of  Raymond  of  Fronciacho,  part  IV,  ch.  16.  Letter  of  cita- 
tion in  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1317,  no.  u. 

48  Lea,  loc.  cit.,  Ill,  70,  says,  "  They  set  forth  seventy-four  in  num- 
ber ",  but  the  Hist.  Trib.  says  "  sexaginta  quattuor  ". 

41  Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  68a.  It  is  amusing  to  contrast  with  Angelo's 
laudation  the  description  of  Bernard  in  the  Index-  of  Raymond  of 
Fronciacho.  There  he  appears  as  a  braggart  and  blasphemer  who  had 
been  in  jail  three  times  and  deserves  to  be  there  still.  Part  IV,  ch.  18. 
A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  29. 


46  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

John  XXII :    "  Then  we  lie,  do  we  ?  " 

Gauf ridus :  "  Holy  Father,  I  did  not  say,  nor  would 
I  say  that  you  lie ;  but  I  did  and  do  say  that  I  do  not  own 
five  gowns." 

John  XXII :  "  We  order  you  to  be  arrested,  till  we 
see  whether  it  be  true  or  not  that  you  own  five  gowns." 

No  wonder  that  the  rest  of  the  deputation  despaired 
of  further  audience  and  fell  on  their  knees  before  the 
pontiff  crying,  "Justice,  Holy  Father,  justice!" 
Their  cry  fell  on  deaf  ears.  The  leaders  were  com- 
mitted to  prison,  the  rest  remanded  to  their  convents, 
there  to  wait,  under  strict  oversight  of  their  superiors, 
until  the  pope  deliberated  further  what  to  do  with  them. 
In  a  few  days  he  ordered  them  to  be  subjected  to  an  ex- 
amination on  the  basis  of  his  Constitution  Quorundam 
exegit  caedtas  (April  13,  1317),  which  confirmed  to 
the  general  of  the  order  absolute  jurisdiction  on  the 
points  of  garments  and  granaries.  Twenty-five  brothers 
failed  to  satisfy  the  examiners,  and  were  turned  over  to 
the  inquisitors  at  Marseilles.  Four  continued  "  hard- 
ened "  in  the  presence  of  the  inquisitors,  and  were 
handed  over  to  the  secular  arm.  They  were  burned 
at  the  stake  in  Marseilles,  May  7,  I3i8.49  By  the 
same  inquisitorial  sentence,  it  was  forbidden  on  pain 
of  excommunication  to  defend  or  countenance  the 
errors  of  the  Spirituals,  or  to  have  in  one's  possession 
any  of  the  works  of  Olivi.50 

The  fires  kindled  at  Marseilles  were  a  signal  for  the 
extermination  of  the  Spiritualists  throughout  Provence. 
We  hear  of  burnings  at  Narbonne,  Montpellier, 

48  Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  693. 
"Ibid. 

50  Index  of  Raymond  of  Fronciacho,  part  IV,  ch.  24.  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill, 
30- 


THE  SPIRITUALS  OF  PROVENCE  47 

Toulouse,  Lunel,  Lodvere,  Carcassonne,  Cabestaing, 
Beziers,  Montreal.  Mosheim  tells  us  of  a  band  of  a 
hundred  and  thirteen  Spirituals  sacrificed  at  Carcas- 
sonne from  1318  to  1350."  Wadding  tells  us  that  the 
Franciscan  inquisitors  alone  burned  one  hundred  and 
fourteen  of  the  zealots  in  a  single  year  (1323)."  And 
Angelo  compares  the  indiscriminate  frenzy  of  the  per- 
secutors to  the  fierceness  of  rabid  dogs  and  wolves." 
The  works  of  Olivi  were  condemned  at  the  Pentecostal 
chapter  of  1319  at  Marseilles,  and  even  the  bones  of 
many  saints  who  had  died  uncondemned  (though  sus- 
pected), were  cast  out  of  their  tombs."  The  result  of 
the  fierce  persecutions  was  to  stamp  out  the  Spirituals 
in  Provence.  A  few  of  the  most  radical  of  the  party 
were  driven  into  violent  but  unavailing  schism.  They 
revived  the  wildest  interpretation  of  the  writings  of 
Joachim  of  Flora,  and  revelled  in  vaticinations  of  the 
fall  of  the  carnal  Church.  John  XXII,  for  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  Quorundam  exegit,  became  the  Anti- 
christ of  the  Apocalypse.  The  martyrs  of  Marseilles 
were  honored  by  a  special  cult.  Saint  Francis  was  to 

81  Mosheim,  De  Beghardis  et  Beguinabus,  1790,  p.  499. 

13  Wadding,  ad  aim.  1317,  no.  45. 

1  "  Et  ancusabant  simpliciter  gradientis  pro  maliciosis  et  oboedientes 
pro  inoboedientibus  et  fideles  et  catholicos  pro  infidelibus  et  schis- 
maticis  ymitantes  canes  et  luppos  rabidos,  qui  in  rabiem  conversi  nihil 
aliud  quam  mordere  appetunt  et  absque  timore  bestias  et  homines  in- 
differenter  invadunt."  Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  7ob.  That  the  Beghines  were 
confused  with  the  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis,  much  to  the  detriment  of 
the  Franciscans,  is  shown  by  an  examination  of  the  Lib.  Sent.  Inq. 
Tolas,  and  Bernard  of  Gui's  Practica,  part  V.  Bernard  in  his  Flares 
Chronicorum  even  says  that  the  Beghines  took  their  rise  from  Olivi's 
"  Postil  on  the  Apocalypse  "  (quoted  by  Ehrle  in  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  456). 
The  name  Beghine  seems  to  have  been  definitely  fastened  upon  the 
suspected  Franciscans  at  the  provincial  Council  of  Beziers  in  1299. 
Mansi,  Hist.  Cone.,  XXIV,  1216.  Compare  Tocco's  opinion:  "  I  Beguini 
non  erano  se  non  terziarii  francescani  ".  L'Eresia  nel  Media  Evo,  p. 
355- 

"Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  6ga. 


48  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

return  in  the  flesh  and  preside  over  the  "  holy  "  Church 
in  the  third  and  perfect  age.  Olivi's  writings  were  in- 
terpolated with  passages  from  the  prophecies  of  Joa- 
chim. Olivi  himself  was  celebrated  as  the  Enoch  of  the 
Third  Age,  the  second  Saint  Paul,  and  even  endowed 
with  all  the  graces  of  the  human  Christ."  A  highly 
colored  legendary  account  of  Olivi's  death,  the  Tran- 
situs  Sancti  Patris,  was  made  the  hand-book  of  the 
party.  They  despised  their  brother  Spirituals  in  Italy 
as  cowardly  opportunists,88  and  predicted  the  speedy 
extinction  of  all  sects  but  their  own.  They  were  the 
true  Church,  destined  to  endure  to  the  end  of  the 
world."  In  this  extravagant  sect  the  unreconciled 
Spirituals  of  Provence  lost  their  social  significance,  and 
sank  into  oblivion. 

85  See  the  trial  of  the  "  prophetess  "  Naprous  Boneta,  in  Lea,  III,  82. 

56  At  the  time  of  the  separation  of  the  brothers  of  the  March  (1294), 
it  had  been  the  Provencal  Spirituals  who  were  the  "  moderates  ".  Olivi 
wrote  in  1295  to  Conrad  of  Offida,  reprimanding  the  Italian  group  for 
denying  the  legitimacy  of  Boniface  VIII's  accession  to  the  papacy. 

67  Lib.  Sent.  Inq.  Tolas.,  pp.  303,  305,  307,  310,  330. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  TUSCAN  SPIRITUALS. 

While  the  great  debate  over  the  correction  of  abuses 
in  the  order  was  raging  between  Ubertino  and  Bona- 
gratia  in  the  presence  of  Clement  V  and  the  prelates 
attending  the  Council  of  Vienne,  "  the  brothers  of  Tus- 
cany, seeing  clearly  the  hatred  of  the  Community 
against  them,  and  knowing  well  that  their  own  destruc- 
tion was  aimed  at,  took  counsel  with  a  certain  holy  and 
wise  man  named  Martin,  canon-regular  of  Siena,  and 
decided  upon  flight.  This  brother  Martin,  hearing  and 
to  some  extent  seeing  with  his  own  eyes  how  violent 
the  conduct  of  the  Community  was,  said  to  the  zealots, 
whose  holy  walk  and  conduct  he  had  observed, 
'  Brothers,  believe  me,  your  enemies  will  drive  you  out 
of  your  convents.  For  they  do  not  obey  the  authority 
of  the  Church,  but  flout  it.  If  you  were  but  three  in 
number,  you  could  still  elect  a  general ;  and  I  am  ready 
to  prove  in  the  presence  of  the  pope  and  all  the  cardinals 
that  your  secession  from  the  Community  is  a  sacred 
right,  and  that  the  election  which  you  make  is  canonical 
and  just.'  The  zealots  had  confidence  in  the  advice  of 
this  wise  man  (who  was,  to  be  sure,  ignorant  of  the 
effect  of  the  course  which  he  advised),  and  chose  a 
general  and  other  officers  for  themselves  according  to 
the  Rule  of  Saint  Francis — a  proceeding  which  brought 
obloquy  on  them  and  on  all  their  associates.  Then  the 
supreme  pontiff  and  all  the  cardinals,  even  those  who 

49 


So  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

favored  the  earlier  proposal,1  were  greatly  shocked,  and 
were  easily  persuaded  to  believe  all  the  evil  reports 
circulated  about  the  Spirituals.  And  although  the 
latter  sent  an  epistle  to  Clement  V  just  before  his  death, 
protesting  that  they  were  ready  to  obey  him  as  dutiful 
children  and  to  endure  his  correction,  the  letter  never 
reached  the  pontiff,  because  the  friends  to  whom  it  was 
entrusted  did  not  dare  to  present  it.  The  Tuscan 
zealots  likewise  sent  messengers  to  Pope  John  XXII 
on  the  same  errand,  but  the  messengers  were  seized  and 
imprisoned  by  the  Community  and  the  message  never 
reached  its  goal." ' 

The  foregoing  passage,  inserted  by  Angelo  da  Clarino 
in  his  inadequate  account  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
Council  of  Vienne,  is  almost  all  we  know  of  the  little 
group  of  Tuscan  zealots,  who  impatiently  broke  away 
from  the  Community  and  fled  to  Sicily  in  the  years 
1312-1314.  Wadding  tells  us  that  a  certain  Jacobus  da 
Tundo  of  Siena  is  his  source  for  the  knowledge  of  the 
Tuscan  Spirituals,3  but,  as  no  chronicler  bearing  such  a 
name  has  been  discovered,  we  are  not  much  helped  by 
the  information.  There  is  more  suggestion  in  a  few 
scattered  notices  in  the  writings  of  Ubertino  da  Casale, 
Angelo  da  Clarino,  and  Raymond  of  Fronciacho.  Uber- 
tino was  doubtless  the  leader  of  the  group  of  Tuscan 
Spirituals ;  *  and  had  he  not  been  temporarily  absent, 
fighting  their  cause  before  the  tribunal  of  Clement  V, 
the  revolt  of  1312  would  probably  never  have  taken 

1  This  proposal  (negotium)  was  the  request  of  Ubertino  that  the 
Spirituals  might  be  allowed  to  separate  peacefully  from  the  Community 
since  reconciliation  seemed  hopeless.  Clement's  decision  came  in  the 
summer  of  1313  (see  p.  42,  above,  n.  38). 

*Hist.  Trib.,  fol.  653,  i. 

3  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1307,  no.  4. 

4  "  Hie  frater  Ubertinus  habitans  in  monte  Alvernae  provincie  Tuscie." 


THE  TUSCAN  SPIRITUALS  51 

piace.  Ubertino  tells  us  in  his  reply  to  the  charges  of 
Bonagratia  against  Olivi's  doctrines,  how  sorely  the 
Brothers  Minor  in  Tuscany  had  betrayed  the  ideal  of 
Saint  Francis.  They  had  full  cellars  and  granaries. 
They  had  amassed  wealth  and  put  it  out  at  usury.  They 
had  even  added  dishonesty  to  avarice.8  The  provoca- 
tion of  the  zealots  to  revolt  from  such  disloyal  followers 
of  Saint  Francis  was  heightened  by  the  persecution 
which  they  had  to  endure  from  hostile  prelates.  In  a 
letter  of  Angelo  da  Clarino,  written  from  Avignon 
(1313)  to  his  brother  Spirituals  in  Italy,  the  hope  is 
expressed  that  Pope  Clement  will  be  pleased  to  treat 
the  prelates  of  Tuscany  who  are  persecuting  the  Spiri- 
tuals beyond  endurance  as  he  treated  Bonagratia  of 
Bergamo  for  the  same  offence  in  Provence.8  From 
Raymond  of  Fronciacho  we  learn  the  names  of  the  con- 
vents in  which  the  Tuscan  revolt  took  place:  Car- 
mignano  (near  Florence),  Arezzo,  and  Ascanio  (near 
Siena).  Raymond,  who  we  must  remember  was  a  de- 
termined foe  of  the  Spirituals,  says  that  the  latter  drove 
the  Minorites  of  the  Community  out  of  their  convents 
by  sheer  force.  When  overcome  in  arms,  some  of  the 
Spirituals  took  refuge  in  private  houses  that  were 
opened  to  them,  while  others  (forty-nine  in  number) 

5  "  Item  pecunia  nomine  oblacionis  in  pluribus  locis  provincie  s.  Fran- 
cisci  et  aliquibus  Tuscie  recipitur  et  diversae  fraudes  fiunt  in  missis 
novis  "...  quoted  by  Ehrle,  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  68. 

' "  lam  enim  fratrem  Bonagratiam  adjudicavit  perpetuo  carceri  et 
omnes  prelates  de  provincia  Provincie  tanquam  excommunicatos  citavit, 
et  speramus  quod  similiter  faciet  de  prelatis  Tuscie  qui  non  cessant  in 
contemptum  Dei  et  ecclesie  sanctos  fratres  .  .  .  vexare."  MS.  Strozziana 
(Florence),  63b.  This  manuscript  containing  the  letter  just  quoted 
and  the  Epistola  Excusatoria  (see  p.  15,  above)  was  discovered  by  the 
Bollandist  Papebroch  in  the  manuscript  collection  of  Senator  Strozzi  of 
Florence  in  1660,  and  is  now  in  the  National  Library  of  the  same  city. 
It  is  described  and  (in  part)  printed  for  the  first  time  by  Ehrle  in 
A.  L.  K.  G.,  I,  509-570- 


52  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

fled  to  Sicily,  where  King  Frederick  received  them 
kindly.  Clement  V  warned  the  rebels  in  two  letters  to 
desist  from  their  schism,  and  when  warning  proved 
vain  he  commissioned  the  Archbishop  of  Genoa  and 
the  Bishops  of  Lucca  and  Bologna  to  suppress  the 
recalcitrants.  The  Inquisition  was  established  against 
them,  and  a  second  detachment  took  refuge  in  Sicily, 
where  we  hear  of  their  organization  by  Henry  of  Ceva, 
a  refugee  from  Boniface  VIII's  persecution.  Forth- 
with a  letter  was  dispatched  from  Avignon,  signed  by 
several  cardinals,  to  the  prelates  of  Sicily,  warning 
them  to  crush  out  the  schism  by  all  means  possible. 
John  XXII  followed  the  matter  up,  immediately  after 
his  election,  by  a  letter  to  King  Frederick  in  the  same 
style.7  The  formal  and  public  condemnation  of  the 
Tuscan  schismatics  followed  in  the  bull  Gloriosam 
ecclesiam  non  habentem  maculam  nee  rugam  (January 
23,  1318). 8 

In  point  of  numbers  and  of  subsequent  influence  this 
movement  of  the  Tuscan  Spirituals  is  not  of  particular 
consequence.  It  is  significant  chiefly  for  the  rapidity 
with  which  the  breach  with  the  order  was  consummated. 
It  gives  us  a  singularly  clear  picture  of  the  irreconcil- 
able status  and  claims  of  the  Community  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  Spirituals  on  the  other.  Furthermore,  it 
is  interesting  as  a  most  decisive  step  in  the  organization 
of  the  Fraticelli. 

Perhaps  no  other  term  in  the  whole  vocabulary  of 
medieval  heresiology  has  been  so  loosely  used  as  the 
word  "  Fraticelli ".  Lea  in  his  History  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion of  the  Middle  Ages  (III,  158),  speaking  of  the 

'March  15,  1317.  Published  in  Wadding  ad  ann.  1317,  no.  9.  (P.  44, 
above,  n.  44.) 

8  Index  of  Raymond  of  Fronciacho,  part  V  entire.  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill, 
30-31- 


THE  TUSCAN  SPIRITUALS  53 

zealots  in  Germany,  says :  "  Though  we  occasionally 
hear  of  Fraticelli  in  these  regions,  it  is  rather  as  a  con- 
venient name  employed  by  monkish  chroniclers  than  as 
really  representing  a  distinctive  sect ".  It  is  not  the 
monkish  chroniclers  alone,  however,  that  have  sinned 
against  clearness  of  definition  in  respect  to  the  Frati- 
celli. Among  modern  writers  on  medieval  history  it  is 
difficult  to  find  one  that  is  at  pains  to  define  the  sect 
clearly.  Gieseler  applies  the  name  to  the  Spirituals  who 
were  driven  out  of  the  convents  of  Narbonne  and 
Beziers  by  John  XXII  in  1317.'  Riezler  also  uses  the 
name  for  the  Spirituals  of  Provence,  with  the  addi- 
tional information  that  Henry  of  Ceva  was  their 
leader ! 10  Carl  Schmidt  in  the  article  "  Fraticelli "  in 
the  Realencyklopddie  fiir  Protestantische  Theologie 
employs  the  term  indiscriminately  for  the  group  of 
Angelo  in  Italy,  the  evicted  brothers  of  the  convents 
of  Provence,  and  the  Beghines  persecuted  by  the  Inqui- 
sition of  Toulouse.  He  says,  further,  that  the  sect 
vanished  before  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
Finally,  even  Lea  himself  is  far  from  explicit  in  his 
use  of  the  word.  In  his  chapter  entitled  "  The  Frati- 
celli ",u  he  treats  of  the  schismatic  Franciscans  of  the 
Community  who,  under  Michael  of  Cesena  and  Bona- 
gratia,  joined  forces  with  Lewis  of  Bavaria  against 
John  XXII ; "  of  the  "  remains  of  the  moderate  Spiri- 
tualists of  Italy  who  had  never  indulged  in  the  dan- 
gerous enthusiasm  of  the  Olivists,  but  were  willing  to 
suffer  martyrdom  in  defence  of  the  sacred  principles 
of  poverty  "  (p.  144)  ;  of  the  group  under  Henry  of 

•  Lehrbuch  der  Kirchengeschichte,  II,  3,  p.  206. 

10  Die    literarischen    Widersacher    der   P'dpste    zur    Zeit    Ludwigs    des 
Bayers,  p.  62. 

11  Hi st.  Inq.  of  the  Middle  Ages,  III,  129-180. 
u  See  chapter  V. 


54  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

Ceva  in  Sicily,  "  which,  when  John  XXII  triumphed 
over  the  order,  gathered  in  its  recalcitrant  factions  and 
constituted  a  sect  whose  strange  persistence  under  the 
fiercest  persecution  we  shall  have  to  follow  for  a  cent- 
ury and  a  half"  (ib. ;  compare  Schmidt's  statement 
above)  ;  of  the  Ghibelline  heretics  of  Todi,  and  the 
Bavarian's  anti-pope;  of  the  sectarians  in  Languedoc 
and  Provence,  whose  suppression  was  facilitated  by 
the  "  rigorous  severity  with  which  the  Spirituals  had 
been  exterminated  "  (p.  167)  ;  of  heretics  of  the  March 
of  Ancona  awaiting  extirpation  even  in  the  middle  of 
the  fifteenth  century  (p.  175)  ;  and  of  the  Observantine 
movement,13  which  "  may  be  credited  with  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Fraticelli,  not  so  much  by  furnishing  the 
men  and  the  zeal  required  for  their  violent  suppression 
as  by  supplying  an  organization  in  which  their  ascetic 
longings  could  be  safely  gratified"  (p.  179).  Thus  all 
of  the  dissatisfied  Franciscans,  in  all  of  their  vicissi- 
tudes, religious  and  political,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
fourteenth  century  down,  are  grouped  under  the  title 
"  The  Fraticelli ". 

In  fact,  the  clear  demarcation  of  any  of  the  mystic 
anti-hierarchical,  popular  sects  of  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries  is  practically  impossible.  Europe 
from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Mediterranean  simply 
swarmed  with  them.  There  were  Reclusi,  Murati, 
Humiliati,  Beghines,  Beghards,  Apostolic  Brethren, 
Brothers  of  the  Free  Spirit,  Brothers  and  Sisters  of  the 
Order  of  the  Militia  of  Christ  and  the  Blessed  Virgin, 
Brothers  and  Sisters  of  Penitence,  Continentes,  Ter- 
tiarii,  etc.,  etc.  The  Lateran  Council  of  1215  had  for- 
bidden the  creation  of  new  religious  orders,  and  this 
astounding  multiplication  of  lay  brotherhoods  was  the 

u  See  above,  p.  28,  nn.  26-30. 


THE  TUSCAN  SPIRITUALS  55 

response.  Then  the  Council  of  Lyons  (1274)  at- 
tempted to  check  these  brotherhoods,"  but  to  no  pur- 
pose ;  they  increased  toward  the  close  of  the  thirteenth 
century  faster  than  ever.  Composed  as  they  were  al- 
most entirely  of  men  and  women  from  the  humbler 
walks  of  life,"  with  no  education  themselves  and  with  a 
hearty  hatred  of  learning-  as  one  of  the  chief  tempta- 
tions to  pride  and  worldliness ; M  without  official  recog- 
nition, except  as  they  joined  themselves  to  one  of  the 
approved  orders,  like  the  Humiliati  or  the  Tertiarii  of 
Saint  Francis  or  Saint  Dominic,"  is  was  obviously  im- 
possible for  them  to  leave  much  material  for  the  chron- 
icler and  the  historian.  We  have  to  get  such  distinctive 
impressions  as  we  can  from  the  official  documents  of  the 
curia  and  from  the  inquisitorial  processes.18  Moreover, 
an  unfortunate  quarrel  between  the  Franciscan  and 
Dominican  chroniclers  of  the  first  half  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  did  much  to  obscure  the  origin  and 
character  of  the  Fraticelli.  Abram  Bzovius,  the  Domini- 
can continuator  of  Baronius's  Annales,  accused  the 
Spiritual  Franciscans  of  hatching  the  heretical  sect 

14  Cone.  Lugdun.,  c.  23.     Mansi,  XXIV,  96. 

18  Alvarus  Pelagius,  De  Planctu  Ecclesie,  II,  5,  says  that  they  were 
"  porcarii,  pecorarii,  armentarii,  caementarii,  carbonarii  [compare  the 
Carbonari  of  the  nineteenth  century],  fabriferarii  ",  and  the  like,  who 
left  their  workshops,  "  mutato  habitu  sed  non  corde  ". 

16  An  amusing  account  of  the  trial  of  one  of  these  "  half-monks  of 
the  Middle  Ages  "  is  incorporated  in  a  manuscript  entitled  "  A  Tractate 
against  Beguines  and  Beghards  ",  published  by  Haupt  in  the  Zeitschrift 
fur  Kirchengeschichte,  XII,  86.  The  speaker  is  the  inquisitor:  "  Quae- 
savi  eum  sive  cognoverit  Domini  orationem.  Primum  sorrisit,  demum, 
me  gravius  instante  ut  diceret,  extensis  manibus  et  elevatis  oculis  ad 
celum  clamavit:  '  Ach  Gott,  mein  Gott,  wie  hast  mich  verlassen!'  et 
penitus  non  novit  principium  nee  finem." 

1T  Alvarus  Pelagius  (loc.  cit.)  speaks  of  them  as  "  sicut  passeres  in- 
solenter  de  monte  in  montem  transmigrantes  ";  and  Matthew  Paris  (ad 
ann.  1244),  says,  "  sub  nullius  sancti  regula  coarctati  nee  adhuc  ullo 
claustro  contenti  ". 

*»  See  Ehrle's  diligent  collection  in  A.  L.  K.  C.,  IV,  64-138. 

5 


56  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

which  caused  the  Catholic  inquisitors  a  century  and  a 
half  of  labor  to  extirpate.  The  Irish  Franciscan  of  the 
stricter  observance,  Hiquey,  felt  called  upon  to  defend 
his  order,  and  especially  his  branch  of  the  order,  in  a 
work  entitled  Nitela  Religionis  Franciscanae.  Wadding 
was  compiling  his  Annales  Minorum,  our  standard 
chronicle  of  the  order,  at  the  time.  He  was  a  fellow- 
countryman  of  Hiquey's,  and  also  a  brother  of  the 
stricter  observance  of  the  Rule  of  Saint  Francis.  He 
entered  the  controversy,  and  instead  of  scientifically 
investigating  who  the  Fraticelli  were  (as  he  might 
have  done  with  the  material  at  his  disposal),  he  bent 
all  his  efforts  to  prove  that  the  sect  never  had  any  con- 
nection with  the  Franciscans,  but  arose  in  Germany." 
Instead  of  accepting  the  historian's  duty  of  impartial 
analysis,  Wadding  here  yielded  to  the  temptation  of 
selecting  his  material  as  a  partisan.  He  arbitrarily 
groups  the  Fraticelli  with  the  pseudo-Apostolics,  the 
Brothers  of  the  Poor  Life,  the  Beghines  and  Beghards, 
as  "  practically  one  sect,  obtaining  its  different  names 
either  from  various  restorers  or  from  the  difference  in 
popular  nomenclature  ".20  Wadding's  deservedly  great 
authority  has  caused  his  theory  concerning  the  Frati- 
celli to  be  received  by  scholars  even  to  the  present  day." 
But  Ehrle,  in  a  fine  study  of  the  Fraticelli,22  has  collected 
all  the  papal  documents  and  inquisitorial  records  relat- 
ing to  the  Fraticelli,  and  proved  beyond  a  doubt  that 

19  Wadding,  ad  ann.   1317,  nos.  23-44. 

20  Wadding,   ad   ann.    1317,   no.   42:    "  Potiori   opera   et   maiore   studio 
potuissem   hie   ostendere    [Why    didn't   he?]    in   unam   sec  tarn    coaluisse 
pseudo-apostolos,    Fraticellos ",    etc.      Cf.    ad    ann.    1297,    no.    30:    "  di- 
versaque    nomina    sortitos    vel    ex    diversis    restauratoribus    aut    populi 
nomenclatura  ". 

21  For  example,   Panfilo   da   Magliano,   Storia  di  S.   Francesco,    1876; 
and   Loofs   in   Theologische  Literaturseitung,    1887. 

"A.  L.  K.  G.,  IV,  64-180. 


THE  TUSCAN  SPIRITUALS  57 

we  have  in  them  a  sect  of  purely  Italian  origin, traceable 
to  the  Franciscan  Spirituals.  It  would  be  beyond  our 
purpose  to  discuss  Ehrle's  article  at  length.  The 
points  which  he  makes  and  ably  defends  are  as  follows : 

1.  The  oldest  document  in  which  the  word  "  Frati- 
celli  "  occurs  (John  XXII's  Sancta  Romano,  of  Decem- 
ber 30,  1317)  applies  the  term  to  the  group  of  Spirituals 
led  by  Liberate  and  Angelo  da  Clarino*  (see  chapter 
II,  above). 

2.  The  name  is  not  used  of  all  the  schismatic  fol- 
lowers of  Michael  of  Cesena  (see  below,  chapter  V), 
but  only  of  such  of  them  as  came  out  of  the  Spiritual 
party. 

3.  The  name  is  never  used  in  the  sources  to  designate 
the  Spirituals  of  Provence  who  broke  away  from  obedi- 
ence to  the  order  in  1317." 

4.  Neither  Segarelli  nor  Dolcino  nor  their  successors, 
the  Apostolic  Brothers,  can  be  called  Fraticelli.21 

5.  Besides  the  followers  of  Liberate  and  Angelo,  the 
members  of  the  Tuscan  group  of  Spirituals  also  are 
called  Fraticelli. 

Now  it  is  only  in  this  last  point  that  Ehrle  seems  to 
me  not  to  have  maintained  the  thoroughness  and  critical 

**  Raymond  of  Fronciacho,  Index.  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  32.  Hist.  Trib., 
fol.  673.  Tocco,  Bollettino  di  Storia  degti  Abruszi,  1895,  p.  15:  "I  Frati- 
celli o  poveri  Eremiti  di  Celestino  V  ". 

**  Lib.  Sent.  Inq.  Tolas.,  ed.  Limborch,  p.  326. 

*  Angelo's  fierce  outburst  of  wrath  against  these  Apostolics  (.Hist. 
Trib.,  fol.  6ob)  would  be  in  itself  sufficient  to  prove  that  they  cannot 
be  classed  in  the  same  company  with  his  followers.  The  language  he 
applies  to  them,  as  well  as  the  reputed  prophecy  of  St.  Francis,  that 
these  Apostles  of  Satan  would  arise,  precludes  the  possibility  of  their 
having  their  origin  in  the  order.  There  were,  to  be  sure,  many  points  of 
contact  between  these  Apostolics  and  the  Fraticelli,  such  as  Joachitic 
dreams,  laudations  of  poverty,  anti-hierarchical  tendencies;  but,  for  all 
that,  the  Fraticelli  differed  sharply  from  the  Apostolic  Brothers  in 
holding  to  the  Rule  of  St.  Francis,  in  confining  their  hostility  to  Rome 
to  the  pontificate  of  John  XXII  only,  and  in  much  better  organization. 


58  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

acumen  of  the  rest  of  his  article.  He  does  not  give  the 
Tuscan  Spirituals  any  particular  prominence  in  the 
development  of  the  Fraticelli  as  a  sect ;  whereas  it 
seems  to  me  clear  that  they  were  practically  the  origi- 
nators of  the  sect.  I  say  "  of  the  sect ",  because  the 
term  "  Fraticelli "  was  not  originally  a  term  of  oppro- 
brium applied  by  the  Church  or  the  order  to  heretics  or 
schismatics,  but  a  popular  appellation,  almost  a  term  of 
endearment — "  the  Little  Brothers  ".  It  was  the  name 
given  to  the  followers  of  Saint  Francis  who  wore  the 
scant  tunic  and  begged  their  bread  from  door  to  door, 
like  the  early  brothers  of  the  order ;  and,  furthermore, 
no  designation  of  his  followers  could  have  been  more 
after  Saint  Francis'  own  heart  than  just  the  word 
"  Fraticelli  ".  When  the  word  is  first  used  by  the  pope, 
however,  in  a  formal  bull  of  condemnation  (Sancta 
Romana,  1317)  it  signifies  rebels  and  heretics.  John 
XXII  in  a  letter  to  Charles,  Duke  of  Calabria  (March 
7,  1317)  acknowledged  that  he  got  the  term  "  Frati- 
celli "  from  popular  usage.28 

The  bull  Sancta  Romana  was  published  just  after  the 
dramatic  negotiations  of  the  curia  with  the  rebellious 
brothers  of  Provence.27  Its  purpose  was  to  chastise  in 
a  body  the  sectaries  who  were  breaking  away  from 
obedience  to  the  order.  Now  the  Tuscan  brothers  had 
been  the  leaders  of  the  defection.  It  was  their  rash 
deed  of  1312  that  made  the  innocent  name  of  "  Frati- 
celli "  a  hissing  at  the  court  of  Avignon.  It  even  seems 
to  me  that  Ehrle's  chosen  quotation  to  prove  that  the 
Fraticelli  were  originally  Angelo  and  his  group  better 
suits  the  interpretation  that  refers  the  word  to  the 

28  "  Nonnulli  prophani   qui  fraticelli  vulgariter  nuncupantur."     A.   L. 
K.  G.,  IV,  65. 

2T  See  p.  46,  above,  n.  48. 


THE  TUSCAN  SPIRITUALS  59 

Tuscans.  It  is  a  sentence  from  the  invaluable  Index 
of  Raymond  of  Fronciacho,  which  we  have  had  occasion 
to  notice  so  often :  "  VIII0  capitulo  ponitur  alia  lictera 
eiusdem  domini  nostri  papae  [John  XXII]  per  quam 
dampnat  et  cassat  statum  et  sectam  Angeli  et  Liberati 
eorumque  complicum  fraticellorum  et  omnium  Bizo- 
chorum,  et  incipit  Sancta  romana  ".  (Part  V,  ch.  8.) 
Commenting  on  this  passage,  Ehrle  says :  "  Ich  glaube 
dass  diese  Stelle  bedarf  keine  Erklarung;  die  Fraticelli 
sind  nach  ihr  die  Anhanger  (complices}  Angelo's  und 
Liberato's."  *  But  does  not  the  word  complices 
mean  "  confederates  "  rather  than  "  followers  " ;  and 
would  it  not  better  designate  an  allied  group  like  the 
Tuscans  ?  In  that  case  the  word  "  fraticellorum " 
would  be  in  apposition  with  "  complicum  "  only,  and 
not  with  the  phrase  "  Angeli  .  .  .  complicum  " ;  and 
we  should  have  the  two  groups  of  "  the  sect  of  Angelo 
and  Liberate  "  on  the  one  hand,  and  "  their  confederates 
the  Fraticelli  (the  Tuscan  rebels)"  on  the  other. 

The  term  "  Fraticelli ",  once  adopted  by  the  Church  as 
a  term  of  opprobrium,  soon  lost  its  original  popular 
meaning  of  the  "  Little  Brothers  ",  and  was  used  quite 
indiscriminately  for  "  rebels  ".  Italian  heretics  were 
persecuted  for  contempt  of  the  hierarchy  under  the 
name  of  "  Fraticelli ",  down  beyond  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  It  was  the  lot  of  the  little  company  of 
Tuscan  Spirituals  who  broke  away  from  the  authority 
of  the  order,  then,  according  to  our  interpretation  of 
the  documents,  to  bring  the  name  of  "  Fraticelli "  into 
reproach  with  Rome,  and  to  give  the  signal  for  a 
century  and  a  half  of  bitter  persecution.29 

*  A.  L.  K.  G.,  IV,  140. 

19  Wadding,  ad  ann.  1334,  no.  i;  1335,  no.  10;  1354,  no.  i;  1374,  no.  22. 
Cf.  ad  ann.  1368,  no.  4:  "  Nullis  artibus  comprimi  .  .  .  potuit  in  Italia 
Fraticellorum  contagio." 


CHAPTER  V. 
THE  MICHAELISTS. 

The  episode  of  the  struggle  between  John  XXII  and 
the  heads  of  the  Franciscan  party  over  the  doctrine  of 
the  poverty  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles  is  not,  strictly 
speaking,  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  Spiritual  Fran- 
ciscans. In  that  struggle  the  Minorites  were  divided  on 
a  different  line  from  that  which  marked  the  boundary 
between  the  Community  and  the  zealots.  Men  of  each 
of  these  parties  were  on  Michael's  side  against  the  pope. 
Nevertheless,  for  two  reasons  it  seems  desirable  to 
speak  of  the  Michaelists  in  concluding  our  sketch  of 
the  Spiritual  Franciscans.  In  the  first  place,  many  of 
the  Spirituals  (at  least  of  the  Fraticelli)1  were  enlisted 
in  the  battle,  not  that  they  loved  Michael  more,  but  that 
they  loved  John  less,  and  saw  here  a  chance  to  be 
avenged  on  him  for  the  persecutions  he  had  set  on  foot 
against  them.  In  the  second  place,  this  struggle  over 
the  poverty  of  Christ  developed  into  a  political  struggle 
when  Michael,  William  of  Ockham,  and  Bonagratia 
fled  from  Avignon  to  join  Lewis  of  Bavaria;  and  it 
therefore  shows  the  Fraticelli  in  the  new  role  of  political 
demagogues. 

There  seems  not  the  slightest  cause  for  the  bitter 
fight  over  the  dogma  of  poverty,  beyond  John  XXII's 
pugnacious  and  domineering  spirit.'  It  looks  as  if  the 

1  Collection  of  documents  in  Nicolaus  Minorita,  ed.  Baluzius-Mansi, 
III,  2065. 

1  Villani  the  historian  describes  John  XXII  as,  "  virtute  invictus,  faci- 
lis  irae,  propositi  tenax,  in  cibo  temperatus,  iuris  utriusque  valde  peri- 
tus  ". 

60 


THE  MICHAELISTS  61 

Dominicans  used  him  as  a  tool  to  work  their  spite 
against  the  Franciscans.  During  the  trial  of  a  Spiritual 
at  Narbonne  in  1321  the  Dominican  inquisitor  invited 
a  Franciscan  teacher  of  the  convent  of  Narbonne,  one 
Berengar  Talon,  to  give  an  opinion  on  the  orthodoxy 
of  the  defendant's  statement  that  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  had  no  property,  either  individually  or  collect- 
ively. Berengar  replied  that  the  statement  was  ortho- 
dox, sanctioned  as  a  tenet  of  the  order  by  Nicholas 
Ill's  bull  of  1279,  Exiit  qui  seminat.  Therefore  the 
inquisitor  accused  Berengar  of  heresy  and  ordered  him 
to  recant.  When  Berengar  refused  to  budge  from  the 
doctrine  of  the  order,  and  started  for  Avignon  to  appeal 
to  the  pope,  the  Dominican  was  before  him,  and  was  not 
disappointed  in  his  hope  that  John's  recent  experiences 
with  recalcitrant  Minorites  would  influence  him  to  take 
sides  against  Berengar.  The  pope,  who  should  have 
recognized  the  validity  of  Berengar's  position  and  for- 
bidden the  inquisitor  to  meddle  with  his  Franciscan 
neighbors,  was  foolish  enough  to  foster  the  quarrel  by 
pompously  reserving  to  himself  the  decision  of  the  case. 
The  tyrant  is  generally  a  pedant  too.  In  the  bull  Quid 
nonnunquam  (March  26,  1322),  he  suspended  Nicholas 
Ill's  Exiit  qui  seminat.  This  was  a  slap  at  the  Francis- 
can order,  and  was  promptly  resented.  The  chapter- 
general  of  Perugia  (May,  1322),  without  waiting  for 
John's  final  word  in  the  case,  published  a  decree  in 
which  it  declared  that  the  doctrine  of  the  poverty  of 
Christ  and  the  Apostles  was  orthodox,  and  was  even 
approved  by  John's  own  bull  Quornndam  exegit 
(I3I7)-  John  was  furious.  In  the  bull  Ad  conditorem 
(December  8,  1322)  he  gratified  both  his  tyranny  and 
his  pedantry  to  the  last  degree.  He  revoked  the  Mino- 
rites' privilege,  granted  seventy-seven  years  before  by 


62  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

Innocent  IV,  of  holding  property  in  the  name  of  the 
Roman  See,  exposing  the  flimsiness  of  his  pretext  in 
long  chains  of  logic.  The  next  year  (November  12, 
1323),  in  the  bull  Cum  inter  nonnullos,  John  formally 
decided  the  question  of  Christ's  poverty  in  the  negative. 
The  action  of  the  chapter  of  Perugia  was  condemned, 
and  henceforth  the  maintenance  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
poverty  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles  was  declared  to  be  a 
heresy.  The  battle  between  the  dictator-pope  and  the 
order  of  Saint  Francis  was  fairly  joined. 

The  folly  of  John  XXII's  presumptuous  behavior 
toward  the  strong  order  of  Saint  Francis  appears 
doubly  great  when  we  remember  the  political  condi- 
tions of  the  time.  Only  two  months  before  the  promul- 
gation of  the  bull  Ad  conditorem  the  most  important 
battle  of  the  fourteenth  century  had  been  fought  at 
Miihldorf.  There  Lewis  the  Bavarian  was  victorious 
over  his  rival  for  the  imperial  crown,  Frederick  of 
Austria,  the  ally  of  the  King  of  Naples  and  the  pope. 
In  the  victorious  Lewis  the  pope  had  an  antagonist 
against  whom  he  needed  all  the  allies  he  could  muster. 
At  this  critical  moment  he  was  foolish  enough  to 
alienate  the  Franciscans  by  his  piece  of  petty,  revenge- 
ful pedantry.  Lewis  the  Bavarian,  who  cared  as  little 
for  the  doctrine  of  the  poverty  of  Christ  as  he  did  for 
the  Grand  Turk,  was  shrewd  enough  to  enlist  the  dis- 
affected Minorites  in  his  cause  at  once.  The  "  Protest 
of  Sachsenhausen  ",8  by  which  he  replied  to  the  pope's 
sentence  of  excommunication,  contains  a  long  excursus 
from  the  pen  of  a  Franciscan  writer  (or  writers),  in 
which  John  is  declared  to  have  "  risen  against  the  Lord 
Jesus,  his  Mother,  and  the  Apostles,  and  attempted  to 

3  Karl  Miiller,  Der  Kampf  Ludwigs  des  Bayern  mit  der  romischen 
Curie,  Tubingen,  1879,  I,  180. 


THE  MICHAELISTS  63 

destroy  the  evangelical  doctrine  of  perfect  poverty,  the 
beacon  of  our  faith  ".  The  seraphic  Francis,  the  docu- 
ment continues,  was  sealed  with  the  stigmata,  and  his 
Rule  was  thus  confirmed  beyond  the  power  of  any 
"  leaden  seal  "  to  disturb.4 

It  has  been  recognized  for  centuries  that  the  Mino- 
rites had  a  hand  in  the  protest  of  Sachsenhausen,  but 
just  whose  hand  it  was  still  remains  unknown.  Riezler 
believes  that  it  was  Ubertino  da  Casale ; "  and  in  fact  we 
have  in  Ubertino's  writings  the  simile  of  the  stigmata 
and  the  seal.'  Still  we  learn  from  Raynaldus'  that 
Ubertino  was  in  Avignon  until  1325  ;  and  the  fact  that 
John  XXII  treated  him  with  consideration  until  that 
time,  even  requesting  from  him  a  written  opinion  on 
the  dispute  over  the  poverty  of  Christ,8  argues  against 
his  being  the  author  of  the  excursus.  Marcour  *  thinks 
that  the  author  was  Henry  of  Thalheim,  provincial  of 
Upper  Germany,  who  was  one  of  the  signers  of  the 
decree  of  Perugia,  and  who  was  deposed  from  his  high 
office  at  Constance  in  1323.  Preger  points  to  Fran- 
ciscus  de  Lutra,  a  fugitive  from  Avignon,  as  the  author, 
and  is  certain  that  the  excursus  is  from  the  pen  of  a 
Spiritual.10  This  position  Ehrle  criticises  as  untenable," 

«  76.,  p.  81. 

8  Riezler,  Die  literarischen   Widersacher  der  Papste  sur  Zeit  Ludwigs 
des  Bayers,  Leipzig,  1874,  p.  73. 

9  Ubertino's  reply  to   Bonagratia  at  Vienne:    "quod  regula  a  Christo 
data,  quam  bullavit  bulla  mirabili,  volens  institutionem  ipsius  in  sanctae 
regulae    testimonium    paucis    post    eius    confectionem    diebus    passionis 
suae  stigmatibus  insignire  ".     A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  87. 

I  Annales  Ecclcsiasticae,  Rome,  1652,  ad  ann.  1325,  no.  20. 
*  Baluzius-Mansi,  II,  279. 

9  Anteil    der    Minoriten    am    Kampfe    eviischen    K.    Ludwig    IV    von 
Bayern  und  Papst  Johann  XXII,  1874,  p.  83. 

10  Ueber   die  Anfdnge   des   kirchenpolitischen  Kampfes   unter  Ludwig 
dem  Baiern,   in  the  Abhandiungen  of  the  Munich  Academy,  Historical 
Class,  XVI,  138  ff. 

II  Olivi  und  die  Sachsenhauser  Appellation,  A.  L.  K.  G.,  Ill,  540. 


64  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

and  shows  by  quotations  from  Michael  of  Cesena's 
tracts  that  the  language  used  in  the  excursus  could  have 
been  employed  by  a  Franciscan  of  the  Community  as 
well  as  by  a  Spiritual.  Karl  Miiller,  in  his  exhaustive 
work  quoted  above  on  the  contest  between  the  Bavarian 
and  the  pope,  found  the  original  of  a  short  piece  of  the 
excursus  in  a  tract  of  Bonagratia  of  Bergamo;13  and 
Ehrle,  in  the  article  just  cited,  has  shown  that  a  much 
larger  section  of  the  excursus  is  taken  from  the  eighth 
Quaestio  of  Olivi.  Other  parts  of  the  excursus  may 
be  traced  to  Franciscan  documents,  but  there  is  little 
prospect  of  finding  who  was  the  author  of  the  whole." 

Lewis  followed  up  his  victory  at  Miihldorf  with  bold 
aggressiveness.  He  put  into  effect  the  doctrine  of  im- 
perial independence  announced  in  the  Protests  of  Niirn- 
berg  and  Sachsenhausen  by  marching  to  Rome  in  1327, 
electing  an  antipope,  and  receiving  at  his  hands  the 
imperial  crown  of  Charles  the  Great.  Lewis'  antipope, 
Nicholas  V,  was  the  Franciscan  friar  Peter  of  Corbario. 

The  heads  of  the  order,  meanwhile,  were  in  virtual 
imprisonment  at  Avignon.  Their  position  was  becom- 
ing precarious  in  the  extreme.  The  Bavarian's  head- 
long course  was  involving  the  order  deeper  and  deeper 
in  the  sin  of  rebellion.  John  XXII  met  the  crisis  with 
resolute  severity.  In  1325  Ubertino  da  Casale  was 
summoned  for  trial.  He  fled  to  Lewis.  In  1326  the 
writings  of  Olivi  were  again  subjected  to  censorship 
and  the  Commentary  on  the  Apocalypse  was  ordered 
to  be  burned.  In  1328  John  detained  the  minister-gen- 
eral, Michael  of  Cesena,  in  Avignon,  while  he  sent  his 

u  Op.  cit.,  p.  86. 

13  Glassberger's  Cronica  (1508):  "Hoc  tempore  composita  fuit  quae- 
dam  scriptura  de  qua  habebantur  suspecti  fratres  minores,  quam  attri- 
buebant  duci  Bavariae  Ludovico."  Anal.  Francisc.,  II,  148. 


THE  MICHAELISTS  65 

own  legate  to  the  chapter  of  Franciscans  assembled  at 
Bologna  to  prevent  the  reelection  of  Michael  to  the 
generalate.  But  the  chapter  defied  the  pope  and 
elected  Michael.  John  summoned  the  general  to  his 
presence,  but  the  latter,  following  the  example  of  Uber- 
tino  da  Casale,  fled  from  Avignon  to  join  Lewis  of 
Bavaria.  With  him  went  Bonagratia  of  Bergamo  and 
the  famous  scholastic  William  of  Ockham.  John  im- 
mediately assembled  a  "  packed  "  chapter  of  the  order 
at  Paris,  in  which  Michael  was  deposed  from  his  office 
and  Gerhard  Odo,  a  submissive  creature  of  the  pope, 
was  elected  in  his  stead  (1329). 

Michael's  open  rebellion  against  the  pope,  which  was 
probably  necessary  to  save  him  from  disgrace  and  im- 
prisonment, was  too  bold  a  step  for  the  order  at  large  to 
sanction.  The  same  man  who  had  been  supported  en- 
thusiastically by  the  chapter  of  Bologna  in  May  found 
himself  an  exile  and  an  outcast  in  July.  The  Minorites 
could  not  be  sponsors  for  Lewis'  extreme  measures. 
The  time  was  three  centuries  past  when  a  Holy  Roman 
Emperor  could  march  to  Rome  to  make  and  unmake 
popes.  Although  the  Bavarian's  antipope  was  a  Fran- 
ciscan, nevertheless  only  four  brothers  of  the  order 
would  endorse  the  emperor's  presence  and  purpose  in 
Rome.14  In  the  Ghibelline  towns  Lewis's  progress  oc- 
casioned some  revival  of  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
Dante  had  hailed  Henry  of  Luxembourg  twenty  years 
before;  and  we  find  records  of  inquisitorial  action 
against  "  fratres  rebelles,  pseudo-f ratres  Minores, 
sequaces  Michaelis,  fautores  sectae  Michaelis ",  in 
Todi,  Amelia,  the  Pennine  province,  and  other  parts  of 
Italy."  But  the  Minorites  had  ceased  to  be  of  any  use 

14  Martene,  Amplissima  Collectio,  II,  763. 
"  Ehrle,  A.  L.  K.  G.,  IV,  150. 


66  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

to  Lewis,  when  the  dogma  of  the  poverty  of  Christ 
could  not  be  used  to  further  the  cause  of  German  inde- 
pendence. Lewis  protected  his  old  allies,  the  self- 
exiled  fugitives  of  the  Minorites,  in  a  Franciscan  con- 
vent in  Munich,  where  Bonagratia,  Michael,  and  Ock- 
ham  with  a  few  followers  maintained  defiance  to  the 
pope  to  the  last.18 

John  XXII  died  in  1334,  and  with  his  death  the 
personal  element  of  the  quarrel  between  the  papacy  and 
the  Franciscans  was  gone.  "  Nicholas  V  "  had  already 
made  his  peace  with  Avignon  four  years  before  John's 
death,  repenting  his  insolent  blasphemy  in  sackcloth 
and  ashes.  In  the  succeeding  decade  most  of  the  dis- 
affected Minorites  returned  to  their  allegiance  to  the 
order.  Pope  Clement  VI,  in  1349,  called  on  the  General 
Farinerius  to  bring  the  last  of  the  persecuted  rebels  to 
terms,  but  the  general  replied,  "  They  are  only  a  hand- 
ful ;  let  them  die  in  peace  ".  So  the  Parfiisser  of  Lewis 
the  Bavarian  died  out — and,  except  for  the  persistent 
Fraticelli  of  Italy,  the  order  had  peace. 

18  Ockham  even  went  so  far,  in  the  Opus  nonaginta  Dierutn,  as  to  ap- 
peal to  a  general  council,  and  called  the  pope  a  heretic  for  refusing  to 
summon  the  same.  The  idea  was  revived  toward  the  close  of  the  cen- 
tury by  the  Parisian  theologians  and  eventuated  in  the  great  but  futile 
councils  of  the  fifteenth  century. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
CONCLUSION. 

To  sum  up  the  results  of  our  investigation,  we  find, 
from  the  very  inception  of  the  Franciscan  order,  two 
tendencies  at  work.  One  was  the  determination  to 
make  the  order  a  potent  influence  on  the  age  and  a 
world- factor  in  history,  by  securing  its  close  connec- 
tion with  the  papacy,  acquiring  numerous  convents, 
increasing  membership  as  rapidly  as  possible,  building 
fine  churches,  securing  privileges  and  exemptions  from 
the  pope — in  a  word,  by  entering  into  competition  with 
the  established  monastic  orders.  The  other  tendency 
was  the  equally  strong  determination  to  preserve  the 
order  from  the  corrupting  influences  of  wealth  and 
privilege,  to  keep  the  members  true  "  Brothers  Minor  ", 
imitators,  not  alone  admirers,  of  Saint  Francis. 

The  former  tendency  quite  naturally  soon  gained  the 
ascendancy ;  the  more  rapidly,  as  it  had  for  its  cham- 
pion a  man  of  tyrannical  force  of  will  and  exceptional 
executive  ability,  Brother  Elias  of  Cortona.  Ineffectual 
protest  or  voluntary  retirement  to  some  hermitage  was 
all  that  was  left  for  the  zealots.1  They  remained  a 
protesting  minority  within  the  order,  looking  forward 

1  Wadding  says  of  Brother  Leo,  head  of  the  zealots,  in  Elias'  time: 
"  Successit  fr.  Leo  ad  eremitorium  Fabriani  in  patientia  et  longanimitate, 
tempus  redempturus  quoniam  dies  mali  erant,  ab  alto  exspectans  malorum 
remedium  ",  ad  ann.  1229,  no.  2.  Salimbene  says  of  Elias:  "  Ministros 
provinciales  ita  tenebat  sub  baculo  quod  tremebant  eum  sicut  iuncus 
tremit  cum  ab  aqua  concutitur  ".  Liber  de  Prelato,  II. 

67 


68  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

to  the  time  of  purification,  when  all  the  sons  of  Saint 
Francis  should  be  holy;  and  at  the  same  time  losing 
that  hold  on  their  times  which  would  have  taught  them 
that  such  a  consummation  as  they  hoped  for  was  hope- 
less. Their  only  attempt  at  concerted  action  before  the 
middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  so  far  as  we  know, 
was  the  deputation  of  the  seventy-two  brothers  to  the 
pope,  in  Crescentius'  generalate.  That  was  quickly 
broken  up,  and  the  brothers  were  scattered  to  the 
farthest  provinces  of  the  order.2 

About  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  however, 
we  find  forces  at  work  which  consolidated  the  protest- 
ing zealots  into  a  party.  Chief  among  the  forces  were : 
first,  the  election  to  the  generalate  of  the  zealot  John 
of  Parma;  second,  the  appropriation  of  the  prophetic 
writings  of  Joachim  of  Flora  and  their  manipulation  to 
suit  the  dawning  apocalyptic  hopes  of  the  zealots; 
third,  the  attitude  of  John  of  Parma's  successor  Bona- 
ventura,  who  immediately  gave  the  champions  of  the 
stricter  observance  of  the  Rule  to  understand  that  no 
hint  of  hostility  to  the  see  of  Rome  or  of  an  esoteric 
authority  of  the  "  companions  "  of  Saint  Francis  would 
be  tolerated. 

After  Bonaventura  we  mark  an  ever  widening  rup- 
ture between  the  fautors  of  the  papal  interpretations  of 
the  Rule  of  Saint  Francis  and  the  champions  of  its 
observance  "  to  the  letter  ".  The  Council  of  Lyons  of 
1274  almost  provoked  a  schism  in  Italy,  and  the  perse- 
cutions to  which  the  zealots  were  subjected  led  in  1294 
to  the  actual  separation  from  the  order  of  a  group  of 
zealots  of  the  March  of  Ancona,  led  by  Liberate, 
Angelo  da  Clarino,  and  others  (chapter  II). 

*  See  above,  p.  8,  n.  16. 


CONCLUSION  69 

The  zealots  of  the  March  of  Ancona  had  the  sanction 
of  Pope  Celestin  V  in  their  withdrawal  from  the  order, 
and  by  his  permission  took  the  name  of  "  Poor  Hermits 
of  Celestin  ".  But  the  Tuscan  zealots,  who  broke  away 
from  the  order  in  1312  (chapter  IV),  had  no  such 
authority  for  their  action.  It  was  rebellion  pure  and 
simple ;  and  it  made  the  name  of  "  Fraticelli ",  or 
"  Little  Brothers  ",  by  which  the  zealots  of  Italy  were 
popularly  called,  a  term  of  reproach  and  a  synonym  for 
"  rebel  "  and  "  schismatic  ". 

At  the  time  of  the  secession  of  the  Tuscan  brothers, 
the  case  of  the  Spirituals  versus  the  Community  was 
being  argued  before  Pope  Clement  V  at  Avignon. 
Clement's  decision,  embodied  in  the  decree  Exivi  de 
Paradiso,  was,  on  the  whole,  favorable  to  the  party  of 
the  stricter  observance,  although  it  enjoined  on  them 
obedience  to  the  officers  of  the  order.  In  the  long  in- 
terregnum which  followed,  both  in  the  generalate  and 
in  the  papacy  (1314-1316),  the  zealots  of  Provence 
were  tempted  (sub  specie  declinandae  persecutionis}  to 
expel  the  priors  from  the  convents  of  Narbonne  and 
Beziers,  so  declaring  themselves  independent  of  the 
discipline  of  the  order.  They  were  promptly  punished 
by  John  XXII  (1317-1318),  and  the  Inquisition  was 
set  to  work  to  crush  out  the  last  traces  of  insubordina- 
tion in  Provence  (chapter  III). 

Meanwhile  the  Fraticelli  were  being  hunted  down  in 
Italy.  They  gave  the  inquisitors  trouble  down  to  past 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  more  moder- 
ate of  the  Italian  zealots,  who  wished  to  follow  the  pre- 
cepts of  Saint  Francis  strictly  and  still  neither  quarrel 
with  the  order  nor  defy  the  pope,  made  several  attempts 
during  the  fourteenth  century  to  get  convents  granted 


70  THE  SPIRITUAL  FRANCISCANS 

them  in  which  they  might  lead  their  severe  life  un- 
molested by  jealous  brothers  and  untempted  by  worldly 
offices.  They  were  finally  successful  under  Paolo  da' 
Trinci  (1368).  The  Brothers  of  the  Stricter  Observ- 
ance were  formally  separated  from  the  Community  in 
1517,  by  Pope  Leo  X's  bull  lie  et  vos  in  vineam. 


APPENDIX  I. 


THE  GENEALOGY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL 
FRANCISCANS. 


Lax  party 


Saint  Francis 


Strict  party 


Brother  Elias 
The  Community 


Brother  Leo 
The  Spirituals 


The  Celestins 
(Chapter  II) 
1294 

The  Tuscans 
(Chapter  IV) 
1312 

The  Prov 
(Chapter 
1309-1; 
Persecu 
Beghine 
tres  rel 
el 

en<jals 
III) 
H8 
ted  as 
s,  fra- 
lelles, 
c. 

Brothers  of  the      Fraticelli  F 

raticelli 

Strict  Observance  *~~ 

(1368) 
Recognized  by 
LeoX 
(1517) 

Persecuted  till 
1466 

The  Michaelists 

or 

Parfiisser  of  Lewis 

of  Bavaria 

(Chapter  V) 

1321-1345  (dr.) 


APPENDIX  II. 

Generals  of  the  Order  and  Roman  Pontiffs  1200-1334  (from 

the  Catalogue  of  Bernard  of  Bessa,  Zeitschrift  fur 

Katholische  Theologie,  VII) . 


DATE 

GENERAL 

POPE 

1198 

Innocent  III 

1216 

Honorius  III 

1227 

John  Parent! 

Gregory  IX 

1232 

Elias  of  Cortona 

1240 

Albert  of  Pisa  (8mos.) 

1241 

Aymo  of  Fevesham 

Celestin  IV  (18  days) 

(vacancy  two  years) 

1243 

Innocent  IV 

1244 

Crescentius  of  Jesi 

1248 

John  of  Parma 

1254 

Alexander  IV 

1257 

Bonaventura 

1261 

Urban  IV 

1265 

Clement  IV 

1268 

(vacancy  two  years) 

1270 

Gregory  X 

1274 

Hieronymus  of  Ascoli 

1276 

Innocent  IV  (4  mos.) 

Hadrian  V  (2  mos.) 

John  XXI  (8  mos.) 

1277 

(vacancy  six  months) 

1278 

Nicholas  III 

1279 

Bonagratia  of  Tielci 

1280 

(vacancy  six  months) 

1281 

Martin  IV 

1284 

Arlotto  of  Prato 

1285 

Honorius  IV 

1287 

Matthew  of  Aquasparta 

(vacancy  ten  months) 

1288 

Nicholas  IV 

1289 

Raymundus  Gaufridi 

1292 

(vacancy  two  years) 

1294 

Celestin  V 

1295 

John  of  Murro 

Boniface  VIII 

1303 

Benedict  XI 

1304 

Gonsalvus  of  Valboa 

(vacancy  eleven  months) 

1305 

Clement  V 

1313 

Alexander  of  Alexandria 

I3M 

(vacancy  two  years) 

(vacancy  two  years) 

1316 

Michael  of  Cesena 

John  XXII 

1329 

Gerardus  Odo 

APPENDIX  III. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  ON  THE  EARLY  LEGENDS 
OF  SAINT  FRANCIS. 

A  lengthy  discussion  of  the  sources  of  the  life  of  Saint 
Francis  would  be  out  of  place  in  the  text  of  an  essay  dealing 
with  the  history  of  the  Spiritual  Franciscans.  But  for  two 
reasons  it  seems  right  to  refer  in  a  note  to  these  sources :  first, 
because  almost  the  whole  of  the  present  great  interest  in  the 
history  of  the  Franciscan  movement  is  in  the  question  of  the 
relative  value  of  the  interpretation  of  the  character  and  pur- 
pose of  Saint  Francis  as  given,  on  the  one  hand,  by  the  official 
legends  of  Celano  and  Bonaventura,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
by  the  more  fragmentary  and  dubious  writings  purporting 
to  have  come  from  the  companions  of  the  Saint ;  and  secondly, 
because  the  knowledge  of  what  confidence  the  zealots  them- 
selves had  in  the  documentary  support  of  their  cause  helps  us 
to  understand  the  claims  of  their  later  literature,  as  well  as  the 
unyielding  fervor  of  their  opposition  to  the  curial  closure  of 
Gregory  IX's  Quo  elongati  and  Innocent  IV's  Ordinem 
vestrum. 

The  Legenda  Prima  of  Thomas  of  Celano,  the  fragment  of 
the  Legenda  Trium  Sociorum,  and  the  official  Legenda  of 
Bonaventura,  published  by  the  Bollandist  Suyskens  in  the 
Acta  Sanctorum  (October,  vol.  II,  1768  ff.),  together  with  the 
Legenda  Secunda  of  Thomas  of  Celano,  discovered  by 
Rinaldi  and  published  at  Rome  (1806),  constituted,  until  about 
twenty  years  ago,  the  only  sources  for  the  history  of  the 
origins  of  the  order  of  Saint  Francis.  It  was  recognized,  to 
be  sure,  that  the  later  chroniclers  of  the  order,  especially  the 
classic  annalist  Luke  Wadding,  had  access  to  much  material 
not  contained  in  the  Legends  of  Celano  and  Bonaventura; 
but  that  that  material  was  of  enough  value  to  modify  seriously 
the  accepted  interpretation  of  the  early  historians  of  the  order 

73 


74  APPENDIX  III 

was  not  dreamed  of.  Even  the  works  of  Saint  Francis  him- 
self, published  with  considerable  pains  but  little  critical  sense 
by  Wadding  (Antwerp,  1623)  were  unheeded  in  the  study  of 
the  order. 

Karl  Muller's  Die  Anf'dnge  des  Minoritenordens  und  der 
Bussbriiderschaften  (Freiburg,  1885)  and  Franz  Ehrle's 
studies  on  the  relation  of  the  Franciscan  Spirituals  to  the 
order  at  large,  in  the  Archiv  fur  Literatur-  und  Kirchen- 
geschichte  (1885-1889),  opened  up  the  field  for  a  new  appre- 
ciation of  the  sources.  The  great  value  of  Muller's  brilliant 
and  radical  criticism  of  the  origins  of  the  order  was  in  the 
emphasis  which  it  put  on  the  fragmentary  Legenda  Trium 
Sociorum,  till  then  the  Cinderella  in  the  family  of  Franciscan 
Legends.  By  showing  the  close  dependence  on  it  of  Celano's 
Legenda  Secunda,  Miiller  prepared  the  way  for  Sabatier  and 
other  scholars  to  seek  further  light  on  the  early  writings  of 
Saint  Francis'  companions  through  the  recovery  of  the  lost 
chapters  of  the  Legenda  Trium  Sociorum.  The  shift  of 
interest  from  Celano  and  Bonaventura  to  the  companions  of 
the  Saint  is  the  crucial  fact  in  the  new  study  of  the  Franciscan 
sources. 

Following  the  way  opened  by  Miiller  and  Ehrle,  sifting  the 
chronicles  of  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  cen- 
turies for  fragments  from  the  immediate  surroundings  of 
Saint  Francis,  carefully  studying  the  writings  of  the  Saint 
himself,  ransacking  the  convent  libraries  of  Europe  for  Fran- 
ciscan documents,  Sabatier  has  succeeded,  almost  single- 
handed,  in  revolutionizing  the  traditional  view  of  the  early 
years  of  the  order.  Instead  of  the  undisturbed  story  of  the 
spread  of  missions,  the  multiplication  of  miracles,  the  pro- 
gressive commitment  of  the  discipline  of  the  order  to  the 
Church,  the  grateful  acceptance  of  the  declaration  of  the  mind 
of  Saint  Francis  from  the  mouth  of  the  pope,  we  have  a  story 
of  conflict  within  the  order  and  persecution  from  without. 
Even  the  earliest  of  the  current  biographies  of  the  Saint,  the 
Legenda  Prima  of  Thomas  of  Celano,  is  a  polemic,  justifying 
the  "  practical "  course  of  the  expansionist  Brother  Elias 
against  the  attacks  of  Leo,  the  leader  of  the  puritan  faction 
among  the  early  companions.1 

1  See  p.  67,  n.  i. 


APPENDIX  III  75 

Against  this  thesis  of  Sabatier's  the  defendants  of  the  tra- 
ditional interpretation  of  Saint  Francis  protest,  led  by  the 
Jesuit  Father  Van  Ortroy  (in  the  Analecta  Bollandiana), 
Monsignore  Faloci-Pulignani  (in  the  Miscellanea  Francis- 
cana),  and  Professor  Delia  Giovanna,  author  of  the  article 
"  San  Francesco  d'Assisi  Giullare "  in  the  Giornale  Storico 
della  Letteratura  Italiana  (vol.  XXV,  1895).  The  champions 
of  the  Saint  Francis  of  Catholic  tradition  argue  for  the  suf- 
ficiency of  Celano  and  Bonaventura  as  biographers  of  the 
Poverello,  deny  any  serious  disagreement  between  the  Church 
and  any  considerable  part  of  the  order,  and  maintain  that 
the  documents  purporting  to  come  from  the  companions  of  the 
Saint  (even  the  Bollandist  Legenda  Trium  Sociorum,  in  the 
case  of  Van  Ortroy,  Anal.  Boll.,  XIX,  1900,  pp.  119-197)  are 
forgeries  of  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  or  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth  century. 

The  Franciscans  of  the  Strict  Observance,  while  good 
Catholics,  are  favorable  to  Sabatier's  vindication  of  the  gen- 
uineness of  the  early  "  spiritual "  sources.  Two  of  them,  the 
Fathers  Marcellino  da  Civezza  and  Teofilo  Domenichelli,  re- 
cently paid  with  exile  from  Rome  their  too  radical  views  in 
the  publication  of  their  reconstructed  Legenda  Trium  So- 
ciorum?  After  having  the  "  true  history "  of  the  order  un- 
questioned since  the  days  of  Saint  Bonaventura  it  must  have 
come  like  something  of  a  shock  to  Catholic  scholars  to  read 
that  the  first  century  of  Franciscan  tradition  has  been  "  piena 
di  tante  oscurita  da  parere  un  dedale  inestricabile ".' 

Unfortunately  there  has  been  considerable  manifestation  of 
the  odium  theologicum  in  the  argument  of  the  case  against 
Sabatier,  whose  procedure  has  been  strictly  scientific.  The 
following  paragraph  from  Mariano's  article  on  the  modern 
biographers  of  Saint  Francis  is  typical  of  the  attitude  of  too 
many  of  the  Catholic  scholars :  "  Che  cosa  e  infatti  San  Fran- 
cesco rappresentato  del  Sabatier?  E  suppergiu  lui  stesso,  un 
Paolo  Sabatier,  un  anticipata  incarnazione  della  persona  sua, 
un  appartenente  alia  sinistra  radicale  del  moderno  protestan- 
tismo,  venuto  gia  al  mondo  or  sono  secoli,  animato  dagli  iden- 

1  See  p.  12,  n.  31. 

3  La  Leggenda  di  San  Francesco,  scritta  da  ire  snot  Compagni,  Rome, 
1899,  Introduction,  p.  xxix. 


76  APPENDIX  III 

tici  concetti  dissolvent!  e  negativi,  tendente  identicamente  a 
far  man  bassa  sul  Cristianismo  positive  e  storico,  e  in  conclu- 
sione  sulla  religione  ".4  And  Monsignore  Faloci-Pulignani  has 
practically  converted  his  once  scientific  periodical,  the  Mis- 
cellanea Franciscana,  into  an  organ  of  attack  on  Sabatier's 
theological  position.  Remonstrated  with  by  Father  Minocchi, 
in  the  Rivista  Bibliografica  Italiana,  1898,  for  his  unfair 
treatment  of  Sabatier,  he  replied :  "  Minocchi  e  padrona  di 
aver  simpatia  per  chi  accusa  Gregorio  IX,  il  gran  amico  di 
San  Francesco  .  .  .  di  farsi  paladino  di  un  partito  di  zelanti 
che  non  volevano  sentir  parlare  di  papa,  il  che  e  eresia  .  .  . 
mai  non  puo  vietare  a  noi  di  denunciare  al  pubblico  lo  scopo 
del  Sabatier  che  e  quello  di  voler  sottrare  al  Catolicismo  la 
gloria  di  aver  dato  al  mondo  San  Francesco  d'Assisi  ".8  All 
of  which  is  militant  theology  and  not  historical  criticism. 

The  document  about  which  the  storm  of  criticism  has  raged 
most  fiercely  is  the  Speculum  Perfectionis,  published  by  Sa- 
batier in  1898,  as  "  the  oldest  legend "  of  the  Saint.8  Mr. 
Alfred  G.  Little  gives  a  list  twenty  lines  long  (which  he  "  does 
not  pretend  is  complete")  of  the  titles  only  of  works  called 
out  by  the  publication  of  the  Speculum  Perfectionis?  The 
circumstances  of  Sabatier's  discovery  of  the  Speculum  Perfec- 
tionis have  already  been  given.8  The  Explicit  of  the  Codex 
Mazarinus  (1743)  which  Sabatier  regards  as  confirmation  of 
his  conjecture  of  the  priority  of  the  Speculum  Perfectionis 
over  all  other  Legends  of  Saint  Francis,  ends  with  the  words : 
"  Actum  in  sacrosancto  loco  sanctae  Mariae  de  Portiuncula 
et  completum  V°  ydus  May  anno  Domini  M°CC°XXVIII0  " 
(May  n,  1228).  Apart  from  this  exact  date  of  the  Explicit, 
Sabatier  urges  in  support  of  his  theory  the  fact  that  the 
later  "  spiritual "  writings  of  Angelo  da  Clarino  (Historia 
septem  Tribulacionum)  and  Conrad  of  Offida  (Arbor  Vitae 

*  "  Francesco  d'Assisi  ed  alcuni  dei  suoi  piu  recenti  Biografi  ",  in  the 
Atti  delta  Reale  Accademia  di  Sciense  MoraR  e  Politiche,  Naples,  1896, 
p.  258. 

8  Misc.  Francesc.,  Foligno,  VI,  78. 

*  Speculum  Perfectionis,   seu   S.   Francisci  Assisiensis  Legenda   Anti- 
quissima,  Fischbacher,   Paris,   1898. 

1  "  The  Sources  of  the  Life  of  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi  ",  in  the  English 
Historical  Review,  October,  1902,  XVII,  643-677. 
8  See  p.  13,  n.  35. 


APPENDIX  III  77 

Crucifixi)  contain  quotations  from  the  writings  of  Brother 
Leo  which  are  frequently  found  in  the  Speculum  Perfections ; 
that  the  style  and  matter  of  the  Speculum  Perfections  show 
unmistakable  signs  of  very  early  composition  (little  of  miracle 
or  prophecy,  very  human  view  of  the  Saint,  preference  for 
the  early  Rule  of  1220-1221  over  the  official  Rule  of  1223)  ; 
that  Gregory  IX's  emphasis  in  the  bull  Quo  elongati  (1230) 
on  his  "  f amiliaritas  longa "  with  the  Saint,  and  his  claim 
"  plenius  novisse  intentionem  eius  ",  is  a  direct  reply  to  the 
"  nos  qui  cum  ipso  f uimus  "  of  Brother  Leo ;  and  especially 
the  dependence  of  Thomas  of  Celano's  Legenda  Secunda  upon 
the  Speculum  Perfectionist 

However,  there  are  perhaps  equally  strong  points  to  urge 
against  the  date  1228  for  the  Speculum  Perfectionis.  The 
commendatory  letter  of  the  authors  of  the  Legenda  Trium 
Sociorum,  addressed  to  Crescentius  in  1246,  in  presenting 
matter  very  closely  related  to  the  Speculum  Perfectionis, 
says :  "  Credimus  quod  si  venerabilibus  viris  qui  praef  atas  le- 
gendas  confecerant  haec  nota  fuissent  ea  minime  praeteris- 
sent " — a  sentence  hardly  intelligible  if  the  Speculum  Perfec- 
tionis had  been  written  twenty  years  earlier.  Furthermore, 
the  grievance  of  Leo  over  the  erection  of  the  new  basilica  at 
Assisi  (which  is  assumed  by  Sabatier  as  the  occasion  of  the 
publication  of  the  Speculum  Perfectionis)  could  not  well  have 
been  prior  to  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone  of  the  edifice  by 
Gregory  IX,  in  July,  I228.10 

Finally,  it  is  characteristic  of  the  whole  work  of  Sabatier 
that  he  himself  was  the  discoverer  of  a  codex  in  the  Ognissanti 
Library  at  Florence,"  whose  Explicit  closes  with  the  words, 
"  Actum  in  sacrosancto  loco  sanctae  Mariae  de  Portiuncula  et 
completum  V°  idus  maii  M°CCC°XVIII° "  (May  n,  1318; 
modern  style,  1317).  The  Explicit  of  the  Ognissanti  codex  is 
probably  the  original,  as  that  of  the  Mazarinus  shows  inter- 
polations. Therefore  Little,  Boehmer,  and  other  distinguished 

8  See  Sabatier's  Introduction,  and  his  reply  to  Van  Ortroy  in  the 
Revue  Historique,  LXXV,  61-101. 

10  See  M.  Barbi,  Bolleltino  della  Societit  Dantesca,  VII  (1900),  73; 
A.  G.  Little,  English  Historical  Review,  loc.  cit.;  H.  Boehmer,  Analekten 
sur  Geschichte  des  Franziskus  von  Assisi,  Tubingen  and  Leipzig,  1904. 

u  Collection  d'  Etudes  et  de  Documents  sur  I'Histoire  du  Moyen  Age, 
vol.  II,  Paris,  1900. 


78  APPENDIX  III 

Franciscan  critics  have  accepted  the  year  1317  as  the  correct 
date  for  the  Speculum  Perfectionis.  Sabatier  himself  has  not 
accepted  this  date.  So  far  as  I  know,  his  last  public  utter- 
ance on  the  subject  is  in  his  Examen  de  quelques  Travaux 
recents  sur  les  Opuscules  de  Saint  Francois.12  There  he 
urges  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  external  criticism  of  the 
manuscripts  to  determine  whether  the  scribe  of  the  Mazarinus 
has  changed  a  C  into  an  M,  or  the  scribe  of  the  Ognissanti  an 
M  into  a  C;  that  the  Speculum  Perfectionis  has  remarkable 
homogeneity  for  a  compilation  made  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury; and  that  it  and  the  Legenda  Trium  Sociorum  (largely 
Brother  Leo's  work)  are  the  only  early  documents  on  Saint 
Francis  bearing  an  exact  date.  He  concludes  with  the  judg- 
ment :  "  II  faut  conclure  que,  si  la  date  de  1317  est  exacte,  elle 
indiquerait  non  la  date  de  la  compilation  mais  la  date  de  la 
copie  d'une  oeuvre  preexistante.  .  .  .  Que  le  Speculum  Perfec- 
tionis soit  une  compilation  ou  une  oeuvre  ecrite  d'une  trait, 
qu'il  soit  de  1228  (1227)  ou  de  1318  (1317),  il  nous  vient  de 
Frere  Leon  "."  Little  concedes  as  much,  in  fact,  when  he  sums 
up  the  case  as  follows :  "  The  greater  part  of  the  Speculum 
Perfectionis  consists  of  documents  transmitted  to  Crescentius 
by  the  Three  Companions  in  1246.  It  also  contains  earlier 
and  later  writings  of  Friar  Leo.  All  these  were  collected 
together  and  arranged  by  the  friars  of  the  Portiuncula  in 
J3!8  (1317).  Some  slight  alterations  and  interpolations  were 
made  at  this  date,  but  in  general  the  actual  words  of  Leo 
and  the  other  socii  have  been  preserved.  Though  the  Spec- 
ulum Perfectionis  was  not  written  in  1227,  it  still  remains 
the  most  valuable  authority  for  the  inner  life  of  Saint  Francis, 
and  to  Sabatier  belongs  the  credit  of  having  restored  it  to  its 
rightful  place."  " 

13  Opuscules  de  Critique  Historique,  fascicule  X,  Paris,  1904. 

13  Opuscules,  loc.  cit.,  p.  143.     M.  Sabatier  assured  me  in  a  letter,  dated 
August   10,   1905,  in  reply  to  the  question  whether  he  still  held  to  the 
early  date:  "  Oui,  je  crois  toujours  qu'il  date  de  1227." 

14  English  Historical  Review,  loc.  cit.,   p.  622.     Father  Leonard  Lem- 
mens,    successor  of   Ignatius  Jeiler   as   prefect  of  the   College   of   Saint 
Bonaventura,  believes  there  were  two  recensions  of  the  Speculum  Per- 
fectionis:   one    made    about    1277    from    the    documents    submitted    to 
Crescentius  by  the  Companions  in   1246;   and  a  later  one,   compiled  at 
the   Portiuncula  in   1317.     He  believes  he  has  the  first    (containing  54 
of  Sabatier's  chapters)   in  a  manuscript  of  St.   Isidor  in  Rome.     Docu- 
menta  Antiqua  Franciscana,  Quaracchi,  1901,  part  II. 


APPENDIX  III  79 

Compared  with  the  Speculum  Perfectionis,  the  reconstructed 
Legenda  Trium  Sociorum  published  by  Civezza  and  Domeni- 
chello  is  of  minor  importance.  It  undoubtedly  represents  a 
Latin  manuscript  considerably  more  complete  than  the  Bol- 
landist  fragment;  but  there  is  no  reason  for  entertaining 
the  optimistic  view  expressed  by  the  authors  in  the  sub-title: 
"  pubblicata  per  la  prima  volta  nella  vera  sua  integrita  ".  The 
fact  that  many  of  its  chapters  are  mere  summaries  of  chapters 
in  the  Speculum  Perfectionis™  which  are  themselves  in  all 
probability  material  submitted  to  Crescentius  by  the  com- 
panions of  Saint  Francis,  is  enough  to  show  that  we  are  not 
dealing  here  with  a  work  "  nella  vera  sua  integrita ".  Its 
publication  was  hardly  worth  the  price  of  exile ! 

Meanwhile  the  champions  of  the  official  Legends  of  Celano 
and  Bonaventura  continue  to  find  the  Bollandist  fragment  of 
the  Legenda  Trium  Sociorum  something  of  an  embarrassment. 
Pulignani"  and  Delia  Giovanna"  stoutly  maintain  that  the 
legend  is  both  genuine  and  complete  as  we  have  it  in  the  Ada 
Sanctorum.  Van  Ortroy,  whose  critical  acumen  could  never 
be  satisfied  with  so  direct  a  denial  of  every  mark  of  internal 
evidence,  seeks  to  prove  that  the  Legenda  Trium  Sociorum  is 
a  clever  forgery  dating  from  the  fourteenth  century,  and  made 
up  of  pieces  from  Celano,  Julian  of  Speyer,  Bonaventura, 
Jordan  of  Giano,  the  Speculum  Perfectionis,  the  Vita  Aegidii, 
etc.,  etc.18  But  the  attempt  to  silence  the  evidence  in  the 
Legenda  Trium  Sociorum  of  early  writings  by  the  companions 
of  Saint  Francis  is  vain.  Too  much  of  the  Legend  itself 
has  been  preserved,  and  every  newly  discovered  manuscript 
and  every  newly  analyzed  compilation  bears  witness  to  the 
soundness  of  Sabatier's  fundamental  thesis  of  the  very  early 
existence  of  "  spiritual "  sources,  however  many  conjectures 
or  points  of  detail  here  and  there  in  the  lively  polemic  may 
prove  to  have  been  wrongly  conceived.18 

"Van  Ortroy,  Anal.  Boll.,  XIX,  458. 

14  Misc.  Francesc.,  VII,  81-119. 

»  Giornale  Stor.  Ital.,  XXXII,  383. 

18  Anal.  Boll.,  XIX,   119-197.     Sabatier's  forceful  reply  in  Revue  H\s- 
torique,  LXXV,  61-101. 

19  See  above,  p.  7,  n.  15.    The  most  astonishing  theory  of  the  Legenda 
Trium    Sociorum    is    proposed   by    Salvatore    Minocchi    in    the   Archivio 
Storico  Italiano,  1900,  XXIV,  81,  "  Nuovi  Studi  sulle  Fonti  biografiche 


8o  APPENDIX  III 

Another  of  the  sources  of  Franciscan  history  which  has 
given  perplexity  to  scholars  and  on  which  valuable  light  has 
been  thrown  in  the  last  few  years  is  the  so-called  Legenda 
Secunda  of  Thomas  of  Celano.  It  had  been  known  to  an- 
nalists and  historians  of  the  order  from  the  thirteenth  century 
to  the  nineteenth  that  in  addition  to  his  Legenda  Prima  of 
Saint  Francis,  written  at  Gregory  IX's  bidding  in  1228, 
Thomas  of  Celano  wrote  at  least  one  other  life  of  the  Saint. 
Brothers  Jordan  of  Giano  and  Salimbene  of  Parma,  both 
chroniclers  of  the  thirteenth  century,  mention  a  second  work 
("secundam  legendam,  alium  librum")  by  Celano;  and  the 
Cronica  XXIV  Generalium  (fourteenth  century),  Mariano  of 
Florence  (fifteenth  century),  Glassberger  (sixteenth  century), 
and  Wadding  (seventeenth  century)  continue  the  tradition. 
A  copy  of  the  Legenda  Secunda  by  Celano  was  offered  to  the 
Bollandist  Suyskens  when  he  was  at  work  on  the  life  of 
Saint  Francis,  but  he  declined  it,20  thinking  that  Wadding  was 
mistaken  in  his  notice  among  the  sources  of  the  life  of  Saint 
Francis  of  an  ampliorem  historiam  by  Celano  "  quae  com- 
muniter  nuncupatur  Legenda  Antiqua  ".21  Perhaps  only  a  frag- 
ment of  the  Legenda  Secunda,  which  failed  to  justify  the 
description  of  the  annalist,  was  offered  to  Suyskens.  It  was 
not  until  1806  that  the  Legenda  Secunda  was  published  by 
Rinaldi  at  Rome. 

A  new  edition  of  Rinaldi's  work  by  Amoni  appeared  in 
1880.  The  title-page  of  the  Amoni  edition  reads,  Vita  Secun- 
da, seu  Appendix  ad  Vitam  Primam.  The  only  manuscript 
of  this  Legend  known  up  to  1899  was  No.  686  of  the  library 
at  Assisi  (fourteenth  century).  It  has  on  its  fly-leaf  in  a 
modern  hand :  "  Memoriale  beati  Francisci  in  Desiderio 
Animae,  id  est  vita  eiusdem  Francisci  secunda  a  Thome  de 
Celano  praememorati  s.  patris  discipulo  conscripta".  Both 
the  Rinaldi-Amoni  edition  and  the  MS.  686  of  Assisi  are  ac- 

di  S.  Francesco  d' Assisi ".  On  the  strength  of  a  single  expression 
(quasi  Stella  matutina)  in  a  Vatican  manuscript  (7339),  which  corresponds 
to  a  reference  in  Bernard  of  Bessa's  De  Laudibus,  Minocchi  makes  an 
elaborate  argument  for  John  of  Ceperano's  authorship  of  the  Legenda 
Trium  Sociorum. 

20  Commentarius  Praevius,  ch.  7. 

»  Wadding,  Annales  Minorum,  II,  240. 


APPENDIX  III  81 

companied  by  an  introductory  letter,  addressed  to  Crescentius 
and  the  chapter  of  Genoa,22  "  Placuit  sanctae  Universitati 
vestrae  ",  which  is  attested  by  the  Cronica  XXIV  Generalium: 
"  Et  post  frater  Thomas  de  Celano  de  mandate  eiusdem 
ministri  [Crescentius]  et  generalis  capituli  primum  [sic!] 
tractatum  legendae  b.  Francisci,  de  vita  scilicet  et  verbis  et 
intentione  eius  circa  ea  quae  pertinent  ad  regulam  compilavit, 
quae  dicitur  Legenda  Antiqua.  Quae  dicto  generali  et  capitulo 
dirigitur  cum  prologo  qui  incipit,  Placuit  sanctae  Universitati 
vestrae  ".23 

But  how,  if  this  Legenda  Antiqua  is  the  Legenda  Secunda 
of  Thomas  of  Celano,  can  the  Rinaldi-Amoni  edition  speak  of 
it  as  the  "  Appendix  "  to  the  first  Legend ;  and  how  can  the 
Cronica  XXIV  Generalium  call  it  a  primum  tractatum! 
Moreover,  the  latter  source  goes  on  to  say  of  John  of  Parma, 
the  successor  of  Crescentius  (1248-1257):  "Hie  generalis 
praecepit  multiplicatis  fratri  Thomae  de  Celano  ut  vitam  b. 
Francisci  quae  Antiqua  Legenda  dicitur  perficeret,  quia  solum 
de  eius  conversatione  et  verbis  in  primo  tractatu,  de  mandate 
fratris  Crescentii  generalis  praedicti  compilato  omissis  mirac- 
ulis  fecerat  mentionem,  et  sic  secundurn  tractatum  qui  de 
eiusdem  s.  patris  agit  miraculis  compilavit  quern  cum  epistula 
quae  incipit  Religiosa  nostra  solicitude  misit  eidem  generali  "." 
There  was  a  completion,  then  (perficeret),  of  this  primus  trac- 
tatus  under  John  of  Parma,  containing  the  miracles  of  the 
Saint.  One  further  complication  to  be  reckoned  with  is 
Fra  Salimbene's  statement  that  Crescentius  "  praecepit  fratri 
Thomae  de  Celano  qui  primam  legendam  b.  Francisci  fecerat 
ut  iterum  scriberet  alium  librum,  eo  quod  multa  inveniebantur 
[contributions  of  Leo's  party?]  de  b.  Francisco  quae  scripta 
non  erant;  et  scripsit  pulcherrimum  librum  tam  de  miraculis 
quam  de  vita  quem  appelavit  Memoriale  beati  Francisci  in 
desiderio  animae  ".  (Cf.  fly-leaf  of  codex  of  Assisi  686,  men- 
tioned above.)  " 

Now  neither  the  Rinaldi-Amoni  edition  nor  the  Assisi  codex 
686  contains  the  miracles  spoken  of  in  the  Cronica  XXIV 

**  See  p.  11,  n.  27. 

33  Anal.  Franc.,  Quaracchi,  III  (1897),  262. 

24  Anal.  Franc.,  Quaracchi,  III  (1897),  276. 

25  Fra  Salimbene,  Cronica,  ed.  Parma,  1857,  p.  60. 


82  APPENDIX  III 

Generalium  and  Cronica  of  Fra  Salimbene ;  though  some  stu- 
dent of  the  codex  (Papini?),  not  finding  any  other  secundum 
tractatum,  has  adopted  for  it  Salimbene's  title,  Memoriale  B. 
Francisci  in  desiderio  animae. 

The  question  of  the  Legenda  Secunda  was  in  this  confused 
state  when  in  1899  Father  Antoine  de  Porrentruy  of  the 
Capuchins  bought  at  the  sale  of  the  private  library  of  an 
Italian  nobleman  (Buoncompagni)  what  proved  to  be  a  manu- 
script of  the  fourteenth  century,  entitled  Memorialis  Gestorum 
et  Virtutum  S.  Francisci.  This  manuscript  fulfils  in  every 
way  the  announcement  of  the  Cronica  XXIV  Generalium  and 
Fra  Salimbene,  containing,  after  the  Legend,  a  short  account 
of  the  canonization  of  the  Saint  and  fourteen  chapters  of 
miracles  performed  by  him  living  and  dead.  Rev.  H.  G. 
Rosedale  has  borrowed  this  manuscript  of  Pere  Edouard  d' 
Alengon,  archivist-general  of  the  Capuchins,  and  published  it 
as  the  true  Legenda  Secunda  in  his  recent  book,  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi  according  to  Brother  Thomas  of  Celano  (London, 
1904).  Rosedale  believes  that  the  discovery  of  this  manuscript 
clears  up  the  mist  surrounding  the  Legenda  Secunda.  The 
Legenda  Antiqua  of  the  Cronica  XXIV  Generalium,  the  Assisi 
codex  686,  and  the  Secunda  Vita  of  Rinaldi-Amoni  are  one 
and  the  same  thing,  namely,  an  appendix  to  the  Legenda 
Prima  of  Thomas  of  Celano.26  Rosedale  then  arranges  the 
writings  of  Thomas  of  Celano  thus : 

I.  Tractatus  Primus,  containing  (a)   the  Legenda  Gregorii 
(our  Legenda  Prima  of  1228),  and  (b)  the  Appendix  ad  Vitam 
Primam  (our  Rinaldi-Amoni  Legenda  Secunda  of  1247). 

II.  Tractatus  Secundus,  containing   (c)   the  Life  and  Mir- 
acles  of  Saint   Francis,   from   the   "  Buoncompagni   codex ", 
written  under  John  of  Parma  (1248-1257). 

This  conclusion  of  Rosedale's  seems  to  me  unwarranted. 
The  works  lettered  (b)  and  (c)  belong  together,  rather  than 
those  lettered  (a)  and  (b).  For  aside  from  the  absurdity  of 
an  "  Appendix "  written  nineteen  years  after  the  Legenda 
Prima,  both  the  Cronica  XXIV  Generalium  and  Salimbene 
point  to  the  grouping  of  (b)  and  (c)  together.  The  former 
says  that  Celano's  work  under  John  of  Parma  was  to  com- 
plete (perficeret)  that  done  under  Crescentius ;  the  latter, 

26  Rosedale,  op.  cit.,  Introduction,  pp.  xxix-xxxiii. 


APPENDIX  III  83 

looking  back  on  (b)  (c)  as  a  whole,  attributed  it  all  to  the 
invitation  of  Crescentius.  If  this  Buoncompagni  codex  is 
really  "  nothing  less  than  the  pulcherrimum  librum  of  Salim- 
bene"  (Rosedale,  Introduction,  xxi),  then  Salimbene  must 
have  erred  in  dating  it  from  the  generalate  of  Crescentius  in- 
stead of  John  of  Parma.  Rosedale's  argument  to  dispel  "  the 
reader's  first  disposition  to  consider  the  Buoncompagni  codex 
as  merely  the  Legenda  Antiqua  (b),  with  the  miracles  added" 
(Introduction,  p.  xxxii),  seems  to  me  very  weak.  However,  we 
have  a  valuable  document  in  the  newly  found  manuscript  of 
Porrentruy's,  which  Rosedale,  by  the  courtesy  of  Pere  d' 
Alengon,  has  first  made  public.  It  is  only  a  pity  that  Rose- 
dale's  book  is  marred  by  such  unpardonable  typographical 
errors  as  Assisii  and  Crescentius  da  Jesu,  among  many  minor 
slips. 

The  discovery  of  the  Speculum  Perfectionis  has  proved  that 
Suyskens  builded  better  than  he  knew  in  rejecting  the  Le- 
genda Secunda  of  Thomas  of  Celano,  if  offered  to  him  in  the 
form  of  the  Assisi  codex  686  or  the  Rinaldi-Amoni  edition. 
For  of  the  three  parts  of  the  Legend  there  contained,  the  first 
corresponds  closely  to  the  Bollandist  Legenda  Trium  Socio- 
rum  (as  pointed  out  by  Miiller  in  1885),  while  the  second  and 
third  parts  contain  about  eighty  chapters  of  the  Speculum 
Perfectionis.  Moreover,  the  material  in  the  second  and  third 
parts  is  arranged  topically,  like  that  of  the  Speculum  Perfec- 
tionis, while  the  first  part  follows  the  Legenda  Trium  Socio- 
rum  in  the  form  of  a  continuous  biography.  The  theory  of 
Sabatier  w  seems  to  me  inevitable :  under  the  lax  Crescentius, 
Celano  suppressed  the  inconvenient  material  furnished  by  the 
companions  of  Saint  Francis ;  but  at  the  bidding  of  the  zealot 
John  of  Parma  he  let  the  "  spiritual "  writings  come  out 
(as  they  now  appear  in  the  Speculum  Perfectionis). 

Between  the  Legenda  Prima  of  Thomas  of  Celano  and  the 
writings  called  out  by  Crescentius'  invitation  at  the  chapter 
of  Genoa  (1244),  we  have  a  notice  of  biographies  of  Saint 
Francis  by  John  of  Ceperano  and  Julian  of  Speyer.28  The 
former  is  as  yet  undiscovered  ;w  the  latter  has  been  identified 

27  See  p.  13,  n.  34. 

28  Wadding,  Annales  Minorum,  II,  240. 

39  See  Minocchi's  theory  of  Ceperano's  Legend,  p.  79,  n.  19. 


&4  APPENDIX  III 

by  Weis  with  the  anonymous  Vita  in  the  Commentarius  Prae- 
vius  to  the  Bollandist  Ada  Sanctorum  (October,  torn.  II). *° 
Fragments  of  a  Dialogue  on  Saint  Francis,  prepared  by 
Crescentius,  still  existed  in  the  time  of  Bernard  of  Bessa,81 
which  Lemmens  claims  to  have  discovered  and  promises  to 
edit.82 

Getting  back  to  the  Legenda  Prima  of  Thomas  of  Celano, 
we  have  a  source  authenticated  beyond  question.  Even  the 
date  of  the  Legend  is  determined  to  within  a  few  months. 
The  Legend  recounts  the  canonization  of  the  saint,  which  took 
place  July  n,  1228,  while  the  endorsement  on  the  Mazarinus 
codex8*  sets  as  the  terminus  ad  quern  the  25th  of  February, 
1229.  There  are  nine  manuscripts  of  the  Legend  extant  (de- 
scribed by  Rosedale,  Introduction,  pp.  xiii-xxvii)  scattered  from 
Barcelona  in  Spain  to  Ossegg  in  Bohemia.  These  codices 
show  no  important  variations,  and  thereby  prove  that  the  clos- 
ing words  of  Gregory  IX's  decree,34  et  censuit  fore  tenendam, 
were  thoroughly  effective.  The  Legend,  whether  or  not 
written  as  a  reply  to  the  attacks  of  the  "  Spiritual "  Leo 
(Speculum  Perfectionis)  on  the  "  practical "  policy  of  Brother 
Elias,  represents  the  interests  of  Elias,  "quern  loco  matris 
sibi  elegerat  [Francis,  himself!]  et  aliorum  fratrum  fecerat 
patrem ".  The  Legend  has  no  word  for  the  troubles  of  the 
order  in  1219-1220  ;M  it  does  not  mention  the  early  zealots, 
Leo,  Angelo,  Masseo,  Bernard,  Rufinus,  Egidius ;  it  ignores 
the  early  Rule  of  1210-1221 ;  it  skips  the  chapters-general  of  the 
order.84 

The  Celanese  Legend  was  rendered  in  verse  by  John  of 
Kent  before  1230,  and  the  quaint  hexameters  have  been 
published  by  Cristofani,  librarian  of  the  commune  of  Assisi.87 

30  J.  E.  Weis,  Julian  von  Speier,  Forschungen  sur  Franciskus-  und 
Antonius-Kritik,  Munich,  1900. 

81  Anal.  Franc.,  Quaracchi,  III  (1897),  263.  Sabatier,  Opuscules, 
vol.  III. 

32  Do cume 'nta  Antiqua  Franciscana,   Quaracchi,    1902,  part   III,   p.    19. 

**  See  p.  10,  n.  22. 

34  See  p.  ii,  n.  27, 

35  Cf.    the    Chronicle   of   Jordan    of    Giano,    ed.    Quaracchi,    I    (1885), 
chs.  9-12. 

34  Elias  omitted  all  chapters-general  during  the  autocratic  term  of 
his  generalate,  1232-1239.  Salimbene,  p.  34. 

91  Cristofani,  I/  pi&  antico  Poema  della  Vita  di  San  Francisco,  scritta 
innansi  al  anno  1230.  Prato,  1882. 


APPENDIX  III  85 

The  writings  of  Saint  Francis  himself  (Opuscula)  have 
been  sadly  neglected  by  the  historians  of  the  order.  To  be 
sure,  Wadding  published  them,  with  little  critical  work,  be- 
fore the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  (Antwerp,  1623), 
and  a  few  biographers  of  the  Saint,  whose  sympathies  have 
been  with  the  Spirituals,  have  made  use  of  the  Opuscula?* 
But  generally  the  Legends  have  been  preferred  to  Saint 
Francis'  own  writings  as  a  source  for  his  life.  At  present  the 
criticism  of  the  older  "  spiritual "  writings  has  led  us  back 
through  Leo  to  Saint  Francis  himself.*1  Three  important 
works  touching  the  Opuscula  S.  Francisci  have  been  published 
lately,  viz :  Opuscula  S.  Francisci  Assisicnsis  secundum  codices 
manuscriptas,  etc.,  by  L.  Lemmens  (Quaracchi,  1904)  ;  Analek- 
ten  sur  Geschichte  des  Franciscus  von  Assisi,  by  H.  Boehmer 
(Tubingen,  1904)  ;  and  Die  Quellen  zur  Geschichte  des  Heili- 
gen  Franciscus  von  Assisi,  by  Goetz  (Gotha,  1904).  Sabatier, 
in  the  tenth  Fascicule  of  the  Opuscules  de  Critique  Historique* 
reviews  these  works,  concluding  with  the  remark :  "  II  y  a 
dix  ans  fut  tente  le  premier  effort  pour  rechercher  dans  les 
Opuscules  une  des  sources  de  1'histoire  de  Saint  Frangois.*1 
Aujourd'hui  historiens  et  critiques  ne  se  sont  plus  separes  que 
sur  les  details :  tous  s'accordent  a  voir  dans  les  Opuscules  la 
pierre  de  touche  sur  laquelle  il  faut  eprouver  la  valeur  des 
diverses  legendes." 

To  sum  up  the  present  status  of  the  sources  of  the  life  of 
Saint  Francis  before  Bonaventura  and  the  decree  of  the 
Parisian  chapter  of  1266,  we  have : 

1.  The  Opuscula  of  Saint  Francis,  offering  many  points  of 
contact  with  the  early  "  spiritual "  sources. 

(Ed.  Wadding,  Antwerp,  1623;  Heroy,  Paris,  1880;  Boeh- 
mer, Tubingen,  1904;  Lemmens,  Quaracchi,  1904.) 

2.  The  Legenda  Prima  of  Thomas  of  Celano  (1228),  adopted 
as  the  official  biography  of  the  Saint  by  Gregory  IX,  1229. 

(Ed.  Suyskens,  A  A.  SS.,  1768;  Rinaldi,  Rome,  1806;  Amoni, 
Rome,  1880;  Rosedale  [as  Legenda  Gregorii],  London,  1904.) 

38  E.  g.,  Chalippe,  Vie  de  St.  Franfois  d'Assise,  Paris,  1728. 
TO  "  L'Oeuvre  de  Frere  Leon  n'est  en  quelque  Sort  que  le  prolongement 
des  Opuscules."    Sabatier,  Speculum  Perfections,  p.  xxv. 

40  See  p.  78,  n.  12. 

41  In    Sabatier's    own    Vie    de    Saint   Frangois    d'Asisse,    Paris,    1894; 
Etude  Critique  des  Sources. 


86  APPENDIX  III 

3.  The   Speculum   Perfectionis,   probably   arranged   in   its 
present  form  by  the  friars  of  the  Portiuncula  in  1317,  but  con- 
taining material  directly  transmitted  from  Brother  Leo  and 
his  associates. 

(Ed.  Sabatier,  Paris,  1898.) 

4.  The  Legenda  Trium  Sociorum,  written  in   1246,  in  re- 
sponse to  Crescentius'  call  for  material  on  the  life  of  Saint 
Francis,  by  the  companions  Leo,  Rufinus,  and  Angelo.     The 
material  was  "edited"  (probably  by  Celano)  and  reduced  to 
the  fragmentary  form  in  which  we  find  it  in  the  Ada  Sanc- 
torum. 

(Ed.  Suyskens,  AA.  SS.,  1768;  Le  Monnier,  Paris,  1828; 
Civezza  and  Domenichelli,  Rome,  1899,  from  an  old  Italian 
version  of  the  sixteenth  century.) 

5-  The  Legenda  Secunda  of  Thomas  of  Celano,  a  product 
of  the  same  historical  conditions  as  the  foregoing  source,  writ- 
ten 1248-1257;  corresponding  in  its  first  part  (written  under 
Crescentius)  with  no.  4,  and  in  its  second  and  third  parts 
(written  under  John  of  Parma)  with  no.  3. 

(Ed.  Rinaldi,  Rome,  1806;  Amoni,  Rome,  1880;  Rosedale, 
London,  1904.) 

6.  The  Legenda  of  Julian  of  Speyer,  mentioned  in  the 
thirteenth-century  chroniclers  Jordan  of  Giano  and  Bernard 
of  Bessa.  Of  no  significance. 

(Ed.  Suyskens,  A  A.  SS.,  Comm.  praev.,  1768;  Van  Ortroy, 
Anal.  Boll.,  1902.) 


APPENDIX  IV. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

[Works  discussed  in  Appendix  III  are  starred  in  this  list.] 

A. 

SOURCES. 

*i.   5".  Francisci  Opuscula. 

Lemmens,  Quaracchi,  1904. 
Boehmer,  Tubingen,  1904. 

*2.   Legendae  by  Celano.  Rosedale,  London,  1904. 

*3.   Legenda  Triton  Sociorum. 

Da  Civezza  and  Domenichello,  Rome,  1899. 
*4.   Speculum  Perfectionis.  Sabatier,  Paris,  1898. 

*5.    Analecta  Franciscana,  etc. 

Muller  et  al,  Quaracchi,  1885  ff. 
Vol.  I,  Chronicles  of  Jordan  of  Giano  and  Thomas  of 

Eccleston,  1885. 

Vol.  II,  Chronicle  of  Nicholas  Glassberger,  1887. 
Vol.  Ill,  Chronicle  of  the  XXIV  Generals  and  the 
De  Laudibus  of  Bernard  of  Bessa,  1897. 

6.  Historia    Septem    Tribulacionum,    auctore    Angela    da 

Clarino.  Ehrle,  Archiv,  II,  IV,  1885. 

7.  Annales  Minormn    (2d   ed.).     Wadding,   Rome,    1731. 
(The  classic  source  for  the  history  of  the  order.     A 
polemic  in  favor  of  the  strict  observance  of  the  Rule. 
Charming  style,  but  too  much   emphasis   on  miracles, 
missions,  and  hagiography.) 

8.  Cronica  Fra  Salimbene  Parmensis.  Parma,  1857. 
(Diffuse  and  often  trivial,  but  of  value  for  the  rela- 
tions of  the  order  to  the  Ghibelline  forces  of  northern 
Italy.) 

7  87 


88  APPENDIX  IV 

g.   Memorabilia  Jordani  de  Giano.  See  no.  5,  vol.  I. 

(Written  in  1262.  Valuable  for  the  early  years  of  the 
order  in  Germany,  and  especially  as  a  corrective  to 
Celano  on  the  troublesome  years  1219-1220.) 

10.  De  Adventu  Minorum  in  Angliam,  Auctore   Thomas 
of  Eccleston.  See  no.  5,  vol  I. 

Brewer,  London,  1858. 

(Valuable  for  list  of  early  ministers-general,  and  for 
the  account  of  the  chapter  of  1239,  in  which  Elias  was 
deposed.) 

11.  Writings   of   Petrus  Johannis   Olivi  and  Ubertino  da 
Casale.  Ehrle,  in  Archiv,  1886-1887. 
(Defence  of  the  "Spirituals"  in  Italy  and  Provence.) 

12.  Bernardi    Guidonis    Practica    Inquisitionis    Haereticae 
Pravitatis.  Douais,  Paris,  1886. 
(Part  V  contains  cases  of  procedure  against  "those 
commonly  called  Beguines,  who  also  pretend  to  be  of 
the  Third  Order  of  the  Rule  of  Saint  Francis  ".) 

13.  Directorium  Inquisitorum  of  Nicholas  Eymerich. 

Pegna,  Venice,  1607. 

(Valuable  for  Inquisition  of  the  fourteenth  century  in 
Spain  and  Portugal.) 

14.  Bullarium  Franciscanum. 

I-IV,  Sbaralea,  1759  ff. 
V,  Euler,  1898. 

(Contains  papal  bulls,  letters,  decrees  referring  to  the 
order,  from  various  Registers  of  popes  and  Morini's 
Speculum  Minoritum,  Venice,  1509.) 

15.  Regesta  Pontificum  Romanorum. 

Potthast,  Berlin,  1874. 
(A  full  collection  of  papal  bulls  from  1198  to  1304.) 

16.  Joachim   Florensis  in   Apocalipsim   Libri    VI;   accedit 
Psalterium  X  Cordarum.  Venice,  1707. 
(The  genuine  works  of  Joachim,  contrasting  in  their 
attitude   toward   the    Roman   curia   with   the    pseudo- 
Joachitic  writings  of  the  thirteenth  century.    See  p.  55, 
n.  16.) 

17.  Sacrorum   Conciliorum   nova   et   amplissima    Collectio. 

Mansi,  Florence,  1759  ff. 


APPENDIX  IV  89 

18.  Corpus  Juris  Canonici.  Friedberg,  Leipzig,  1879. 
(For  the  decretals  of  John  XXII.) 

Occasional  notices  touching  the  subject  of  this  essay  are 
found  in  the  following  collections  of  sources  : 

19.  Annales  Ecclesiastici.  Raynaldus,  Rome,  1652. 

20.  Historia  Angliae.          Matthew  Paris,  ed.  London,  1866. 

21.  Antiquitates  Italicae.  Muratori,  Arezzo,  1773  ff. 

22.  Ponies  Rerum  Germanicarum. 

Boehmer,  Stuttgart,  1843. 

23.  Regesta  Imperil  (1314-1347). 

Boehmer,  Frankfort,  1839. 

24.  Monumenta  Miscellanea  Varia. 

Baluzius-Mansi,  Lucca,  1761. 

25.  Spicilegium  Veterum  .  .  .  Scriptorum. 

D'Achery,  Paris,  1723. 

26.  Collectio  Judiciorum,  etc.  D'Argentre,  Paris,  1728. 

27.  Thesaurus  Novus,  etc.         Martene-Durand,  Paris,  1717. 


B. 

LITERATURE. 
I. 

ON  SAINT  FRANCIS  AND  THE  SPREAD  OF  THE  ORDER. 

28.  Vita  di  San  Francesco.    Bonghi,  Citta  di  Castello,  1884. 
(The  only  one  of  the  many  lives  of  the  Saint  called  out 
by  the  anniversary  of  1882  that  is  large  and  scholarly 
in  its  treatment.     In  most  of  the   Italian  biographies 
the  polemic  or  edifying  purpose  is  evident.) 

29.  Vie  de  Saint  Francois  d'Assise.     Sabatier,  Paris,  1894. 
(The  classic  biography  of  the  Saint.    Brilliant  scholar- 
ship combined  with  the  utmost  charm  of  style.) 

30.  Francois  d'Assise.  Renan,   Paris,   1879. 
(A  sympathetic  study  of   the^  Saint — the  best  before 
Sabatier's — in  the  Nouvelles  Etudes  Religieuses.) 


90  APPENDIX  IV 

*3l.   Die  Anfange   des  Minoritenordens   und   der  Bussbru- 
derschaften.  Miiller,  Freiburg,  1885. 

32.  "  Franz  von  Assisi  und  die  Griindung  des  Franciskaner- 

ordens."  Hegler,  1895. 

(Article  in  the  ' Zeitschrift  fiir  Theologie  und  Kirche, 
criticising  Sabatier's  work  as  too  radical.) 

33.  Die   Niederlassungen   der  Minoriten   im   Rheingebiet. 

Koch,  Leipzig,  1881. 

(Valuable  for  the  early  history  of  the  Franciscans  in 
Germany,  but  painfully  detailed  and  dry.) 

II. 
ON  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  FRANCISCANS. 

34.  L'Eresia  nel  Medio  Evo.  Tocco,  Florence,  1884. 
(Shows  the  progress  first  from  heresy  to  schism,  then 
from  schism  to  heresy  in  medieval  thought.     Identifies 
the  Spiritual  Franciscans  with  the  heretical  Beghines.) 

35.  Die   Geschichte   der  religiosen  Aufkl'drung  im   Mittel- 

alter.  Reuter,  Berlin,  1875. 

(The  classic  presentation  of  radical  religious  thought 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  Not  so  sympathetic  a  treatment  of 
the  Franciscans  as  Tocco's.) 

36.  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Lea,  New  York,  1880  ff. 

(A  work  of  the  very  first  rank,  but  rather  severe  on 
the  Church.  Vol.  Ill  contains  an  account  of  the  per- 
secution of  the  Spiritual  Franciscans.) 

37.  L'Inquisition  dans  le  Midi  de  la  France,  au  XIII6  et  au 
XIV*  Sitcles.  Molinier,  Paris,  1880. 
(Very  exhaustive  and  scholarly  account  of  the  perse- 
cutions suffered  by  the   suspected   Spirituals   of   Pro- 
vence and  Languedoc.) 

38.  L' Italic  Mystique.  Gebhardt,  Paris,  1889. 
(Study  of  the  radical  and  quietistic  influences  at  work 
in  Italy  in  the  Middle  Ages.) 

39.  Articles  on  Olivi  and  the  Council  of  Vienne. 

(For  the  combat  of  the  Spirituals  of  the  fourteenth 
century  with  the  papal  court  at  Avignon.) 


APPENDIX  IV  91 

III. 

ON  JOACHIM  OF  FLORA  AND  THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL. 
(See  page  36,  note  18.) 

IV. 
ON  THE  POLITICAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  FRANCISCANS. 

40.  Der  Kampf  Ludwigs  des  Bayern  tnit  der  romischen 
Curie.  Muller,  Tubingen,  1879. 
(For  discussion  of  authorship  of  the  Sachsenhausen 
Protest.) 

41.  Die    literarischen    Widersacher   der   Pdpste   zur   Zeit 
Ludwigs  des  Bayers.  Riezler,  Leipzig,  1874. 

More  general  works  containing  considerable  material  of  im- 
portance on  the  subject  of  this  essay  are: 

42.  L'Heresie  et  le  Bras  Seculier  au  Moyen  Age. 

Havet,  Paris,  1880. 

43.  Beitrage  zur  Sektengeschichte  des  Mittelalters. 

Dollinger,  Munich,  1890. 

44.  Geschichte  K.  Friedrichs  des  Zweiten  und  seiner  Reiche. 

Winkelmann,  Berlin,  1863. 

45.  Geschichte  Innocenz  des  Drittens. 

Hurter,  Hamburg,  1834. 

46.  Pierre   de   la   Vigne.     Huillard-Breholles,    Paris,    1865. 

47.  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France,  vol.  XXII. 

Leclerc-Renan,  Paris,  1865. 

48.  Histoire  Diplomatique  de  Frederic  II. 

Huillard-Breholles,  Paris,  1870. 

49.  Les  Poetes  Franciscains  en  Italic  au  XIIIe  Siecle. 

Ozanam,  Paris,  1882. 

50.  Studies  in  Medieval  Life  and  Literature. 

McLaughlin,  New  York,  1894. 


INDEX. 


Acta  Sanctorum,  4  n.,  10  n.,  73,  84. 

Akademie  der  Wissenschaften,  36 
n. 

Albert  of  Pisa,  72. 

Albigenses,  crusade  of,  29. 

Alencon,  Pere  d',  83. 

Alexander  IV,  Pope,  72;  Gerhard's 
book  condemned  by,  36,  37. 

Alexander  of  Alexandria,  72;  pol- 
icy of,  toward  the  Spirituals,  42- 
43;  refutation  of,  41. 

Amelia,  inquisition  in,  65. 

Amoni,  ed.  Legenda  Prima,  85 ;  ed. 
Speculum  Perfections,  83;  ed. 
Vita  Secunda,  80-82,  passim,  86. 

Anagni,  commission  of,  36. 

Analecta  Bollandiana,   5   n.,  79  n. 

Analecta  Franciscana,  etc.,  3,  3  n., 
ii  n.,  64  n.,  81  n.,  84  n. 

Ancona,  March  of,  Spirituals  of 
(Poor  Hermits  of  Celestin),  16, 
68,  69,  71;  accused  of  Maniche- 
ism,  31;  aid  from  Pope  Celestin 
for,  22,  26  n. ;  dissension  among, 
over  possession  of  property,  18- 
19;  history  of,  18-28,  32-33;  in- 
fluence of,  26;  later  work  of,  27- 
28;  opposition  of,  to  Boniface 
VIII,  23-25,  31;  papal  recogni- 
tion of,  28;  persecution  of,  9, 
19-21,  22-26,  23  n.,  24  n.,  26-27, 
26  n.;  separation  of,  38,  48  n. ; 
termed  Fraticelli,  54,  57  n. 

Angelo  da  Clarino,  8  n.,  32,  84; 
cedulae  and  rotuli  of,  14;  ef- 
forts of,  in  behalf  of  the  Spir- 
ituals, 26-27;  Epistola  Excusa- 
toria,  15,  25  n.,  26-27,  26  n.,  51 
n. ;  followers  of,  26,  26  n.,  28, 
53.  57,  58-59;  Historia  Septem 
Tribulacionum  Ordinis  Mi- 


norum,  3-4,  6  n.,  8  n.,  9  n.,  15, 
17,  19,  20,  23,  23  n.,  25  n.,  26  n., 
32-33,  34,  38,  40  n.,  42,  44,  45, 
46  n.,  47,  50,  57  n.,  76;  leader 
of  the  Spirituals,  9,  27,  27  n., 
68 ;  letters  from,  32,  5 1 ;  mission 
of,  to  the  pope,  22  n. ;  opposi- 
tion of,  to  the  lax  Franciscans, 
6;  persecution  of,  20,  20  n.,  21; 
popularization  of  the  order  op- 
posed by,  12;  Rule  of,  7  n.;  Saint 
Francis  legend  of,  6  n.,  10,  n- 
12,  13  n.,  14,  73-86,  passim. 

Apostasy,  Spiritual  Franciscans  ac- 
cused of,  20. 

Apostolic  Brethren,  35  n.,  54,  55, 
57- 

Aquasparta,  General,  see  Matthew 
of  Aquasparta. 

Ara  Coeli,  Franciscan  chapter  of,  8. 

Archiv  fur  Literatur-  und  Kirchen- 
geschichte,  2-3,  2  n.,  5  n.,  8  n., 
15  n.,  17  n.,  19  n.,  27  n.,  32  n., 
33  n.,  39  n.,  40  n.,  42,  44  n.,  45 
n.,  46  n.,  47  n.,  52  n.,  57  n., 
58  n.,  63  n.,  74. 

Archivio  Storico  Italiano,  79  n. 

Arezzo,  convent  of,  51. 

Aries,  Council  of,  Gerhard's  writ- 
ings condemned  by,  37,  37  n. 

Arlotto  of  Prato,  72. 

Arnold  of  Brescia,  24. 

Arnold  of  Villanuova,  effort  of,  in 
behalf  of  the  Spirituals,  40,  40  n. 

Ascanio,   convent   of,   51. 

Asceticism,  among  the  Franciscans, 

2. 

Ascoli,    Hieronymus,   see   Nicholas 

IV,  Pope. 
Assisi,  library  of,  codex  in,  80-81, 

83- 


93 


94 


INDEX 


Athens,  Archbishop  of,  24. 

Atti  delta  Reale  Accademia  di  Sci- 
enze  Morali  e  Politiche,  76  n. 

Avignon,  archives  of,  44  n. ;  court 
of,  58;  Franciscans  imprisoned 
at,  64;  proceedings  at,  35. 

Aymo  of  Fevesham,  72. 

Baluze,    Etienne,   Miscellanea,    34, 

63  n. 
Barbi,  M.,  Bollettino  della  Societa 

Dantesca,    77   n. 
Baronius,  Annales,  55. 
Beghards,    religious    sect,    classed 

as    Fraticelli,    56;     "Tractate 

against  ",  55  n. 
Beghines,  religious  sect,  30,  54,  55, 

71;  decretal  concerning,  27;  ef- 
forts against,  44;   history  of,  47 

n.;    Spiritualists    aided    by,    43; 

classed    as    Fraticelli,     53,    56; 

"  Tractate  against  ",    55  n. 
Beitrage  zur  Sektengeschichte  des 

Mittelalters,    15  n. 
Belgium,  researches  in  the  convent 

libraries  of,    n   n. 
Benedict  XI,  Pope,  25,  72. 
Bernard   Delicieux,   45,   45   n. 
Bernard  of  Bessa,  8  n.,  72,  84,  86; 

De  Laudibus,  80  n. 
Bernard  of  Gui,  Flares  Chronicum, 

47  n. ;  Practica,  47  n. 
Bernard  of  Quintevalle,   12. 
Bertrand  of  Bruges,  see   Clement 

V,  Pope. 
Bertrand  of  Tours,  papal  order  to, 

44- 
Beziers,  Council  of,  47  n.;  convent 

of,   42,    43 ;    persecution    at,   47 ; 

Spirituals  of,  35,  44-46,  47,  53. 
Bizochi,  24  n.,  27. 
Boehmer,    H.,   Analekten   sur   Ge- 

schichte  des  Franciscus  von  As- 

sisi,  77  n.,  85;  ed.  Opuscula  of 

Saint    Francis,    85;    opinion    of, 

77-78. 
Bologna,  Bishop  of,  52;  Franciscan 

chapter  of,  65. 
Bonadies,  Spirituals  exiled  by,  16. 


Bonagratia  of  Bergamo,  33  n.; 
Clement's  treatment  of,  51,  51 
n. ;  dispute  of,  with  Ubertino, 
41,  49;  efforts  of,  against  the 
Spirituals,  43-44;  followers  of, 
53;  opposition  of,  to  John  XXII, 
60,  65,  66;  supposed  author  of 
the  Protest  of  Sachsenhausen, 
64- 

Bonagratia  of  Tielci,  Minister- 
General,  33,  72;  Olivi's  works 
ordered  examined  by,  38. 

Bonaventura,  as  head  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan order,  5-7,  72;  attitude  of, 
toward  the  Spirituals,  68;  Brevi- 
loquium,  5  n.;  early  legends  of 
Saint  Francis  suppressed  by,  4-5, 
4  n.,  6,  6  n.,  7,  13  n. ;  Itinera- 
rium  Mentis  in  Deum,  5  n. ;  of- 
ficial legends  of  Saint  Francis 
by,  4,  4  n.,  10,  12,  14,  73-75,  79; 
Opera,  6  n. ;  schismatic  litera- 
ture suppressed  by,  9. 

Bonaventura,  Saint,  College  of,  3, 
38  n.,  78  n. 

Boneta,  Naprous,  48  n. 

Boniface  VIII,  Pope,  7,  20,  40; 
accession  of,  22,  48  n. ;  death  of, 
25;  letters  to,  24  n.,  25;  machina- 
tions of,  21 ;  opposition  of  Spir- 
ituals, 23-25,  24  n.,  31;  orders 
of,  24  n. ;  persecutions  ordered 
by,  24-25,  52;  treatment  of  the 
Spirituals  by,  22-24. 

Brothers  Preachers,  see  Domini- 
cans. 

Bulls,  papal,  2,  6,  7,  12-13,  13  n., 
17,  18  n.,  19  n.,  40-42,  46,  47,  52, 
57,  58,  61,  69,  70. 

Buoncompagni  Codex,  82,  83. 

Bzovius,  Abram,   55-56. 

Cabestaing,  persecutions  of  Spir- 
ituals at,  47. 

Cantu,  Eretici  d'  Italia,  24  n. 

Carbonari,  55  n. 

Carcassonne,  convent  of,  42;  per- 
secution of  Spirituals  at,  47. 

Cardinals,  letters  from,  52. 

Carmignano,  convent  of,   51. 


INDEX 


95 


Cathari,   the,   9. 

Celestin  IV,  Pope,  72. 

Celestin  V,  Pope,  72 ;  abdication 
of,  31;  aid  given  the  Spirituals 
by,  22,  69;  election  of,  21;  res- 
ignation of,  22. 

Celestin,  Poor  Hermits  of,  see 
Ancona,  March  of,  Spirituals  of. 

Celestinian   Benedictines,  22. 

Chalippe,  Vie  de  St.  Franfois  d' 
Assise,  85  n. 

Charles  II,  of  Sicily,  efforts  of,  in 
behalf  of  the  Spirituals,  40. 

Church,  Roman,  hostility  toward, 
5;  maintenance  of,  18  n.;  non- 
obedience  to,  49;  Saint  Francis 
to  control,  47-48. 

Civezza,  Marcellino  da,  ed.  Le- 
genda  Trium  Sociorum,  12  n., 
79,  86. 

"  Clarines  "  of  the  March  of  An- 
cona, 26. 

Clement  IV,  Pope,  72. 

Clement  V,  Pope,  7,  51,  72;  bulls 
of,  40-41,  41-42,  41  n.,  42  n.,  69; 
Canons  of,  42  n. ;  correspondence 
of,  50,  52;  death  of,  43;  decision 
of,  50  n. ;  election  of,  25;  inves- 
tigation of,  40-41;  leniency  of, 
toward  the  Spirituals,  26,  26  n., 
41-42;  tribunal  of,  17  n.,  20  n., 
31,  34,  SO. 

Clement  VI,  Pope,  order  of,  66. 

Collection  d'  Etudes  et  de  Docu- 
ments sur  I'Histoire  du  Moyen 
Age,  77  n. 

Colonnas,  the,  disputes  of,  21. 

Commentarius  Praevius,  80  n.,  84. 

Community,  71;  hostility  of,  toward 
the  Spirituals,  49,  50,  50  n.,  52, 
69;  Michaelists  in,  53,  60,  64. 

Conrad  of  Offida,  31,  32,  48  n. ; 
Arbor  Vitae  Crucifixi,  76-77. 

Constantinople,  Patriarch  of,  24, 
24  n. 

Continentes,  religious  sect,  54,  55. 

Convents,  maintenance  of,  18  n. 

Councils,  ecclesiastical,  decrees  of, 
2. 

Crescentius,  General,  10  n.,  u  n., 
68,  86;  complaint  against,  15-16; 


Dialogue  of  Saint  Francis,  84; 
documents  submitted  to,  78,  78 
n.,  79;  election  of,  19  n. ;  Le- 
genda  Trium  Sociorum  sup- 
pressed by,  14;  letters  to,  77,  81; 
work  on  legend  under,  82,  83,  86. 

Cristofani,  ed.  II  piit  antico  Poema 
della  Vita  di  San  Francisco,  84. 

Cronica  XXIV  Generalium,  8  n., 
19  n.,  38  n.,  39  n.,  80,  81-82. 

Curia,  Roman,  relations  of  the 
Franciscans  to,  2,  7,  16;  docu- 
ments of,  55. 

Dante  Alighieri,  Paradiso,  39  n. 

D'Argentre,  Coll.  Judic.,  34,  37  n. 

Davidson,  Thomas,  5  n. 

Della  Giovanna,  79. 

Denifle,  H.,  article  by,  8  n.,  36  n. 

Documents  Antiqua  Franciscans, 
78  n.,  84  n. 

Dollinger,   15  n. 

Dolcino,  religious  sect,  26,  57. 

Domenichelli,  Teofilo,  Saint  Fran- 
cis legend  published  by,  12  n., 
79,  86. 

Dominic,  Saint,  55. 

Dominican,  chroniclers,  55;  friars, 
18;  inquisitor,  61. 

Ecstasy,  religious,    i. 

Edward  I,  of  England,  24. 

Egidius,  see  Giles. 

Ehrle,  Franz,  articles  by,  in  Archiv 
fiir  Literatur-  und  Kirchenge- 
schichte,  2-3,  5  n.,  6  n.,  8  n.,  15 
n.,  17  n.,  19  n.,  27  n.,  32  n.,  33 
n.,  34,  39  n.,  47  n.,  51  n.,  55  n., 
56-58,  56  n.,  63,  63  n.,  64,  65  n., 
74;  id.,  in  Zeitschrift  fur  Katho- 
lische  Theologie,  8  n. ;  contribu- 
tion of,  to  Franciscan  history, 
4  n.,  10;  manuscript  discovered 
by,  27. 

Elias,  of  Cortona,  General,  18  n., 
71,  72;  attacks  upon,  74;  defec- 
tion of,  1 1 ;  leader  of  the  lax 
party,  67,  67  n.,  84;  policy  of, 
84;  protests  against,  13,  15;  re- 
lation of,  to  the  order,  13;  re- 
moval of,  from  the  generalate, 


96 


INDEX 


30     n. ;     Speculum    Perfections 

supposedly  suppressed  by,   14. 
England,  political  exiles  in,  25. 
English  Historical   Review,   76  n., 

78. 
Europe,  Franciscan  influence  upon, 

2;  religious  sects  in,  54. 
Extravagantes  Johannis  XXII,  etc., 

17  n.,  27  n. 

Faloci-Pulignani,  controversy  of, 
as  to  Sabatier's  thesis,  3  n.,  76- 

79- 
Fanaticism,  suppression  of,  5-6. 

Farinerius,  General,  66. 

Fioretti,  the,   13  n. 

Fliscus,  Ottobonus,  see  Hadrian  V, 
Pope. 

Florence,  National  Library  of,  51 
n. 

France,  culture  in,  29-30;  Francis- 
cans in,  2,  27;  intellectual  revo- 
lution in,  29. 

Francis  of  Assisi,  Saint,  2;  anni- 
versary of,  3;  conversion  and 
canonization  of,  12,  82,  84; 
death  of,  4,  12;  disciples  of,  3 
n. ;  early  legends  of,  4-5,  4  n.,  6, 

7,  10,  10  n.,  11-15,  73-86;  litera- 
ture  concerning,   87-90;    prophe- 
sied return  of,  47-48;   prophecy 
of,    57    n. ;    Protest   of    Sachsen- 
hausen   and,   62-63;   relation   of, 
to  the  order,  13;     religious  and 
social  ideas  of,  14;  Rule  of,  6-7, 

8,  12,   15,   16,   18  n.,   19  n.,  20, 
22,  23,  27,  31,  33,  35,  39.  39  n., 
41,  49,  56,  57  n.,  63,  68,  77,  84; 
Testament  of,  8,  12-13,  15,  19  n., 
27,   31;   Third  Order  of    (Terti- 
arii),  47  n.,  54,  55;  treachery  to 
the   ideals   of,    12-13,   4* ;   works 
of,  13  n.,  74,  85;  see  also  various 
lives  as  Vita  Secunda,  Speculum 
Vitae  S.  Francisci,  etc. 

Francis,  Saint,  Dialogue  on,  84. 
Francis,  Saint,  Life  and  Miracles 
of,    82. 


Franciscans  (lax  party),  71; 
abuses,  luxuries,  and  wealth  of, 
6,  7,  41,  42,  49,  51;  attitude  of, 
toward  the  Michaelists,  60-66; 
chapters-general  of,  84;  chron- 
iclers of,  55;  constitutions  of,  5; 
dissensions  among,  5-6,  7,  9-10, 
18;  efforts  and  aims  of,  67;  Eli- 
as's  measures  concerning,  12;  gen- 
erals of,  72;  growth  of,  7;  his- 
tory of,  73-74;  influence  and  im- 
portance of,  2;  invitation  to,  to 
write  the  life  of  Saint  Francis, 
1 1 ;  meagreness  of  literature  con- 
cerning, 2-4,  ii ;  of  Armenia, 
20;  origin  of,  4;  periods  in  the 
history  of,  9-10;  publications  by, 
3,  3  n. ;  revival  of  study  of,  3; 
Spirituals  persecuted  by,  9,  15- 
16,  19-21,  22-27,  4°'4I»  S4>  Spir- 
ituals's  attack  upon,  5 1 ;  struggle 
of,  with  John  XXII,  60-66;  sup- 
pression of  fanaticism  among,  5- 
6;  works  concerning,  2-4,  10, 
87-90,  91;  under  Bonaventura, 
5-6;  under  John  of  Parma,  5; 
see  also  Community,  the. 

Franciscans,  Conventual,  contro- 
versies of,  13-14,  28. 

Franciscans,  Spiritual,  accusations 
against,  55-56;  article  on,  76  n. ; 
chapters-general  of,  84;  consoli- 
dation of,  into  a  party,  68;  de- 
fense of,  20  n. ;  dissensions  of, 
5-6,  7-8,  7  n.,  12,  12  n.,  16- 
17;  efforts  and  aims  of,  67-68; 
Fraticelli  originating  from,  56- 
59;  genealogy  of,  71;  groups 
of,  16;  history  of,  15,  73-74;  lit- 
erature concerning,  73-90,  91; 
orthodoxy  of,  15-16;  persecution 
of,  9-10,  15-16,  54,  60;  poverty 
of  Christ  upheld  by,  60-66;  Saint 
Francis  legends  written  by,  14; 
struggle  of,  with  John  XXII,  60- 
66;  see  also  Ancona,  March  of, 
Spirituals  of;  Fraticelli;  Mi- 
chaelists; Provence,  Spirituals 
of;  Tuscany,  Spirituals  of. 

Franciscus  de  Lutra,  63-64. 


INDEX 


97 


Fraticelli,  decretal  concerning,  27; 
efforts  against,  44;  in  Italy,  66; 
lack  of  material  concerning,  55; 
opposition  of,  to  John  XXII,  60; 
organization  of,  52;  origin  of, 
SS'59!  persecution  of,  69;  term 
of  reproach,  58,  59,  69;  use  of 
the  term,  52-54. 

Frederick  II,   Emperor,   30  n. 

Frederick  III,  Duke,  of  Austria, 
defeat  of,  62. 

Frederick  III,  King,  of  Sicily, 
kindness  of,  toward  the  Spirit- 
uals, 52;  letter  to,  52;  papal 
order  to,  44. 

Free  Spirit,  Brothers  of  the,  54,  55. 

Gaetani,  Benedetto,  Cardinal,  see 
Boniface  VIII,  Pope. 

Gaufridi,  Raymundus,  32,  72;  ap- 
pointment of  Olivi  by,  39; 
leniency  of,  toward  the  Spiritu- 
als, 20,  20  n.,  22;  papal  order  to, 
40;  resignation  of,  20  n. 

Gaufridus  de  Cornone,  45-46. 

Generalate,  interregnum  in,  43,  69. 

Genoa,  Archbishop  of,  52;  Francis- 
can chapter  of,  n,  14,  83. 

Gentile  da  Spoleto,  28. 

Gerhard  de  Borgo  San  Donino, 
Introductorius  in  Evangelism 
Aeternum,  36,  37. 

Germany,  independence  of,  66; 
Spirituals  in,  53. 

Geschichte  der  religiosen  Aufklar- 
ung  im  Mittelalter,  36  n. 

Ghibelline  heretics,  54. 

Gieseler,  J.  K.  L.,  Lehrbuch  der 
Kirchengeschichte,  53,  53  n. 

Giles,  Brother,  8,  12,  84. 

Giornale  Storico  Italiano,  79  n. 

Glassberger,  Cronica,  n  n.,  64  n., 
80. 

Goetz,  Die  Quellen  zur  Geschichte 
des  Heiligen  Franciscus  von  As- 
sist, 85. 

Gonsalvus,  of  Valboa,  Minister- 
General,  42,  72;  refutation  of. 


Gowns,  decretals  concerning,  31, 
46. 

Granaries,  decretals  concerning, 
3 if  46. 

Gregory  IX,  Pope,  10,  19,  35  n., 
72,  76;  bulls  and  decrees  of,  7, 
12-13,  18,  18  n..  73,  77,  84;  cor- 
ner-stone laid  by,  77;  Elias  re- 
moved by,  30  n. ;  Thomas  of  Ce- 
lano  selected  by,  to  write  the 
Saint  Francis  legend,  13  n.,  80, 
85. 

Guido  of  Mirepoix,  papal  order  to, 
40. 

Hadrian  V,  Pope,  6,   72. 

Haiton,  King,  of  Armenia,  mis- 
sion to,  20-21. 

Haupt,  publication  by,  55   n. 

Henry  of  Ceva,  52,  53. 

Henry  of  Thalheim,  63. 

Heretics,  attracted  by  the  Fran- 
ciscans, 2;  Fraticelli  said  to  be, 
58,  59;  Spiritual  Franciscans 
and,  1 6. 

Heresy,  doctrine  of  poverty  con- 
sidered, 62;  in  France,  29;  in 
Italy,  30-31;  Spiritual  Francis- 
cans accused  of,  20. 

Heroy,  ed.  Opitsculu  of  Saint 
Francis,  85. 

Hieronymus  of  Ascoli,  72. 

Hiquey,  Nitela  Religionis  Francis- 
canae,  56. 

Historisches  Jahrbuch  der  Gorres- 
gesellscltaft,  31  n. 

Honorius  III,  Pope,  19  n.,  72. 

Honorius  IV,  Pope,  72. 

Humanism,  in  France,  29-30. 

Humiliati,  religious  sect,  54,  55. 

Innocent  III,  Pope,  72. 

Innocent  IV,  Pope,  8  n.,  35  n.,  72; 
bulls  of,  19  n.,  73;  deputation 
sent  to,  68;  letter  from,  37  n. 

Inquisition,  at  Narbonne,  61;  in 
Provence,  69;  proceedings  of, 
55;  Spiritual  Franciscans  sub- 
jected to,  24  n.,  46-47,  52,  65; 
tortures  of,  9,  29. 


INDEX 


Institutionalization,  advantages  and 
disadvantages  of,  1-2. 

Isnard,  Spiritual  Franciscans  ex- 
amined by,  26. 

Italy,  Franciscans  in,  2;  inquisi- 
tion in,  65;  religious  conditions 
in,  30-31;  religious  vagabonds 
in,  24-25;  Spirituals  in,  27,  48, 
Si,  53- 

Jacobus  da  Tundo  of  Siena,  50. 

Jacopone  da  Todi,  poems  of,  24  n. 
Jean    de    Meung,    Roman    de    la 
Rose,  36  n. 

Jeiler,  Ignatius,  78  n. 

Joachim  of  Flora,  Evangelium  Ae- 
ternum,  36  n. ;  prophecy  of,  36, 
37»  38,  47,  48,  68;  ideas  of,  9. 

John  XXI,  Pope,  72. 

John  XXII,  Pope,  2,  4,  7,  15,  72; 
bulls  of,  17,  17  n.,  26-27,  31,  46, 
47,  52,  57,  58,  61,  62;  character 
of,  60  n. ;  correspondence  of, 
50,  52;  death  of,  9,  66;  Extrava- 
gantes,  17  n.,  27  n.;  opposition  to, 
53,  57  n. ;  order  of,  concerning 
Olivi,  32  n. ;  severity  of,  toward 
the  Spirituals,  10,  17,  26-27,  32, 
42  n.,  43-46,  69;  struggle  of, 
with  the  Michaelists,  60-66. 

John  de  Vallibus,  28. 

John  of  Ceperano,  biography  by, 
80  n.,  83-84. 

John  of  Kent,  poem  by,  84. 

John  of  Murro,  23,  40,  40  n.,  72. 

John  of  Parma,  as  head  of  the  or- 
der, 5,  8,  68,  72;  charges 
against,  8;  condemned  for  fa- 
naticism, 6;  deposition  of,  8,  9, 
16,  20  n. ;  influence  of,  36;  work 
on  legend  under,  81,  82,  83,  86. 

Jordan  of  Giano,  Chronicle,  25  n., 
79,  80,  84  n.,  86. 

Julian  of  Speyer,  legend  of,  79,  83- 
84,  86. 

Languedoc,  heresy  in,  29;  sectari- 
ans of,  54. 

Lateran  Council  of  1215,  24  n.,  37, 
54- 


Lea,  H.  C.,  History  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, 4  n.,  24  n.,  42  n.,  45  n., 
48  n.,  52-53. 

Legenda  Antigua,  So,  81,  82. 
Legenda  Gregorii,  82. 
Legenda  Pritna,  by  Thomas  of  Ce- 

lano,  n,  73,  74,  80-87. 
Legenda  Secunda,   by  Thomas   of 
Celano,  4  n.,  6  n.,  10,  13  n.,  73, 
74,  77,  80-83,  86,  87. 
Legenda  Trium  Sociorum,  6  n.,  10 
n.,    11-12,   13   n.,   14,   73-86,  pas- 
sim. 

Legenda    Vetus,    14. 
Leggenda  di  San  Francesco  scritta 

da  tre  suoi  Compagni,  75  n. 
Lemmens,    Father    Leonard,    opin- 
ion  of,    78   n. ;    Opuscula   Sancti 
Patris    Francisci    Assisiensis,    7 
n.,   85. 
Le    Monnier,   ed.   Legenda    Trium 

Sociorum,  86. 

Leo,  Brother,  67  n.,  71,  84;  docu- 
ments of,  6,  14;  Legenda  Trium 
Sociorum,  6  n.,  10,  11-12,  13,  13 
n->  J4>  73-86,  passim;  Legenda 
Vetus,  14;  opposition  of,  to  Elias, 
74;  popularization  of  the  order 
opposed  by,  12,  reply  to,  77; 
Speculum  Perfectionis,  etc.,  12  n., 
13,  J4.  35,  84;  works  of,  78. 
Leo  X,  Pope,  bulls  of,  28,  70. 
Lewis  of  Bavaria,  Protest  of 
Sachsenhausen,  62-64,  63  n.,  64 
n. ;  Spirituals  join,  17;  struggle 
of,  with  John  XXII,  53,  60,  62- 
63,  64-66. 

Liberato,  32;  death  of,  26;  efforts 
of,  in  behalf  of  the  Spirituals, 
25-26,  25  n. ;  followers  of,  57, 
59;  leader  of  the  Spirituals,  9, 
22,  68;  persecution  of,  20,  21, 

22. 

Litterae  septem  Sigillorum,  39,  39 
n. 

Little,  A.  G.,  article  by,  76,  77  n. ; 
contribution  of,  to  Franciscan 
history,  10;  opinion  of,  77-78. 


INDEX 


99 


Little   Brothers,  see   Fraticelli. 

Lodvere,  persecution  of  Spirituals 
at,  47- 

Loofs,  article  by,  56  n. 

Lucca,  Bishop  of,  papal  commis- 
sion to,  52. 

Lunel,  persecutions  of  Spirituals 
at,  47. 

Lyons,  Council  of,  9,  10,  18;  de- 
cree of,  19  n. ;  hostility  of,  to  the 
Spirituals,  37-38,  68. 

Magliano,  Panfilo  da,  Storia  di  S. 
Francesco,  56  n. 

Mandonnet,  Pierre,  contribution 
of,  to  Franciscan  history,  10. 

Manicheism,  Spirituals  accused  of, 
23>  3i,  35  n. 

Mansi,  J.  D.,  Hist.  Cone.,  37  n., 
47  n.,  55  n. 

Mariano  of  Florence,  80. 

Marseilles,  martyrs  of,  47;  perse- 
cution of  Spirituals  at,  46. 

Martene,  Amplissima  Collectio,  65 
n. 

Martin  IV,  Pope,  72. 

Martin  of  Bodici,  25. 

Martin  of  Siena,  revolt  of  Spir- 
ituals instigated  by,  49. 

Mary,  Saint,  of  the  Portiuncula, 
32  n. 

Masseo,  84;  popularization  of  the 
order  opposed  by,  12. 

Matthew  of  Aquasparta,  General, 
39,  72. 

Mazarin  codex,  76,  78,  84. 

Melchiorri,  Saint  Francis  legend 
published  by,  12  n. 

Melissanus  de  Macro,  41  n. 

Memorialis  Gestorttm  et  Virtutem 
S.  Francisci,  82. 

Michael  of  Cesena,  72;  documents 
of,  64;  followers  of,  57;  severity 
of,  toward  the  Spirituals,  31, 
43-44;  struggle  of,  with  John 
XXII,  53,  60-66;  see  also  Mi- 
chaelists. 

Michaelists,  71;  struggle  of  with 
John  XXII,  17,  60-66. 


Middle    Ages,    humanism    during, 

29-30. 
Militia  of  Christ  and  the  Blessed 

Virgin,  Brothers  and  Sisters  of 

the  Order  of,  54,  55. 
Minocchi,  Salvatore,  article  by,  76; 

theory  of,  79  n.-8o  n.,  83  n. 
Minorites,  see  Franciscans. 
Miracles,  accounts  of,  33;  of  Saint 

Francis,  12. 
Miscellanea  Franciscana,  3  n.,  76, 

76  n.,  79  n. 

Missionaries,  equipment  of,  i. 
Montpellier,  Olivi  as  lector  of,  39; 

persecution  of  Spirituals  at,  46, 

47- 
Mosheim,    De    Beghardis    et    Be- 

guinabus,  47. 
Muller,   Karl,   contribution   of,    to 

Franciscan     history,      10;      Der 

Kampf  Ludwigs  des  Bayern,   17 

n.,  62  n.,  64,  64  n. ;  Die  Anfange 

des  Minoritenordens,   etc.,   3,   3 

n.,  74. 
Munich    Academy,    Abhandlungen 

of,  63  n. 

Murati,  religious  sect,  54,  55. 
Muratori,  Antiquitates,  25  n. 
Muzio  di  San  Severino,  Achille, 

translation  of,  12  n. 
Mysticism,   i,   2,   5. 

Naples,  Spirituals  of,  16;  persecu- 
tions at,  9. 

Narbonne,  convent  of,  42,  43; 
Franciscan  chapter  of,  5,  14; 
persecutions  at,  61;  petition  to 
burghers  of,  40;  Spirituals  of, 
35,  44-46,  53. 

Neophytes,   instruction  of,    i. 

Nicholas  III,  Pope,  35  n.,  72; 
bulls  of,  40,  61. 

Nicholas  IV,  Pope,  35  n.,  72;  or- 
der of,  38. 

Nicholas  V,  Pope,  64,  66. 

Nicolaitans,   35   n. 

Nicolaus  Minorita,  60  n. 

Nurnberg,  Protest  of,  64. 


100 


INDEX 


Observantine  movement,  54,  70,  71. 
Odo,  Gerhard,  65,  72. 
Ognissanti  Library,  77-78. 
Olivi,  Petrus  Johannis,  accusations 
against,  33,  38-40;  Apologia,  39, 

39  n.;  Commentary  on  the  Apoc- 
alypse, 47  n.,  64;   death  of,  34, 
40,  40  n.,  48;   followers  of,  40, 

40  n.,  53;  influence  and  writings 
of,    17,    17   n.,   31-32,   31    n.,    32 
n.,  34,  35,  38-40,  41,  43,  46,  47, 
48,  64;  leader  of  the  mystics,  9; 
legend    concerning,    33;    letters 
from,  31,  33,  33  n.,  48  n.;  order 
concerning  the  bones  and  sepul- 
cher  of,  32  n.;  Quaestio,  64. 

Olivi  und   die   Sachsenhduser  Ap- 
pellation, 63  n. 
Opuscules  de   Critique  Historique, 

7  n.,   78  n.,   85. 

Orsini,    Napoleone,    Cardinal,    22, 

26. 
Orsini,  the,  disputes  of,  21. 

Papacy,  interregnum  in,  43,  69. 

Papebroch,   Bollandist,   51   n. 

Parenti,   John,    13,    72. 

Parfiisser  of  Lewis  of  Bavaria, 
see  Michaelists. 

Paris,  Archbishop  of,  37  n. ;  cen- 
sors of,  33,  38-39,  38  n.;  Fran- 
ciscan chapter  of,  4,  6,  15,  16, 
65. 

Paris,  Matthew,  55  n. 

Patras,  Archbishop  of,  24. 

Pelagius,  Alvarus,  De  Planctu  Ec- 
clesie,  55  n. 

Penitence,  Brothers  and  Sisters 
of,  54,  55- 

Pennine  provinces,  inquisition  in, 
65- 

Peregrinus  de  Bononia,  legend  of, 

8  n. 

Perugia,  chapter-general  of,  decree 

of,  61,  62,  63. 
Peter     Lombard,     Sentences,     31, 

31   n. 
Peter    of    Corbario,    see    Nicholas 

V,  Pope. 


Peter  of  Macerata,  22  n. 

Peter  of  Morro,  see  Celestin  V, 
Pope. 

Philip  IV,  the  Fair,  of  France,  24, 
25- 

Pieve,  Citta  della,  Franciscan 
chapter  of,  6. 

Pisa,  Franciscan  chapter  of,  4,  4  n. 

Poor  Life,  Brothers  of  the,  27,  56. 

Popes,  attitude  of  the  Spirituals 
toward,  16;  conflict  between,  and 
the  emperor,  30;  creation  of,  2; 
Franciscans  under  the  authority 
of,  8;  list  of,  72;  obedience  to, 
32,  39-40;  protest  to,  16;  revolt 
against,  30;  treatment  of  John 
of  Parma  by,  8,  8  n. 

Porrentruy,  Antoine  de,  82,  83. 

Portiuncula,  friars  of,  78;  Indul- 
gence of,  13  n. 

Poverty  of  Christ  and  the  Apos- 
tles, doctrine  of,  17  n.,  53,  60- 
66;  laudations  of,  57  n. 

Preger,  W.,  article  by,  36  n. 

Propagandist^  scope  of,  i. 

Property,  dissension  concerning 
the  possession  of,  18-19;  re- 
versal of  the  decree  concerning, 
61-62;  Rule  of  Saint  Francis 
concerning,  18  n. 

Prophetism,  i,  2;  see  also  Joachim 
of  Flora. 

Provence,  persecution  of  the  zeal- 
ots in,  9;  religious  conditions 
in,  29,  30;  sectarians  of,  54. 

Provence,  Spirituals  of,  16,  17, 
29-48,  69,  71;  difference  between 
and  the  Italian  Spirituals,  29-32; 
disputes  of,  with  the  lax  major- 
ity, 41;  hostility  of  the  Council 
of  Lyons  toward,  37-38;  influ- 
ence of  the  Joachitic  prophecy 
upon,  36-37;  leniency  toward,  41- 
42;  persecution  of,  39-41,  43- 
47;  revolt  of,  47-48,  57;  sources 
for  the  history  of,  32-35;  termed 
"  Fraticelli  ",  53;  trouble  of, 
with  the  pope,  27. 


INDEX 


101 


Quaracchi,  Minorites  in,  3. 

Raymond    of    Fronciacho,    dispute 
of,    41;    efforts    of,    against    the 
Spirituals,  43;  Index,  34,  35,  40 
n.,   41,   43,    44   n.,   45   n.,   46   n., 
52  n.,  57  n.,  59;  writings  of,  34- 
35,    So,    Si- 
Raymond  of  Toulouse,  29. 
Raynaldus,    Annales    Ecclesiastici, 

63- 

Realencyklopadie  fur  Protestan- 
tische  Theologie,  53. 

Reclusi,  religious  sect,   54,   55. 

Renan,   article  by,  36  n. 

Retreat,   religious,    i. 

Reuter,  H.,  article  by,  36  n.,  37. 

Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  36  n. 

Revue  Historique,  14  n.,  77  n., 
79  n. 

Riezler,  Sigmund,  Die  literarischen 
Widersacher  der  Pdpste,  etc.,  53, 
63. 

Rinaldi,  ed.  Legenda  Prima,  85; 
ed.  Vita  Secunda  S.  Francisci, 
4  n.,  10,  73-86,  passim. 

Rivista    Bibliografica    Italiana,    76. 

Rosedale,  Rev.  H.  G.,  ed.  Legenda 
Gregorii,  85;  ed.  Legenda  Se- 
cunda, 10  n.,  86;  St.  Francis  of 
Assist,  etc.,  82-83,  82  n.,  84. 

Rudolphus,  26. 

Rufinus,  84;  Legenda  Trium  Soci- 
orum,  6  n.,  10,  11-12,  13  n.,  14, 
73-86,  passim;  popularization  of 
the  order  opposed  by,  12. 

Sabatier,  Paul,  article  by,  77,  79 
n.;  attacks  upon,  13-14,  74-79; 
contribution  of,  to  Franciscan 
history,  10;  ed.  Speculum  Per- 
fectionis,  7  n.,  12  n.,  85,  86;  let- 
ter from,  78  n.;  oldest  version 
of  Saint  Francis's  legend  dis- 
covered by,  13;  Opuscules  de 
Saint  Francois,  78;  researches 
of,  ii  n.;  review  by,  85;  thesis 


of,     74-79,     83;     Vie    de    Saint 

Franc,  ois    d'    Assise,    3,     13    n. 

(Eng.   tr.),    85    n. 
Sachsenhausen,   Protest   of,   62-64, 

63   n. 

Saints,  bones  of,  exhumed,  47. 
Salimbene,  Fra,  account  by,  37  n. ; 

Cronica,  8  n.,  34,  37,  81  n.,  82, 

83,  84  n.;  Liber  de  Prelato,  67  n. 
Santa  Croce,  convent  of,  39. 
Satirists,   literature  of,   29-30. 
Schmidt,   Carl,   article   of,   on   the 

"  Fraticelli  ",    53,    54. 
Scriptures,  mystical  interpretation 

of,  9. 

Sectaries,  28,  54,  58. 
Segarelli,    57. 
Seraphici    Viri    S.    Francisci    As- 

sisiensis  Vitae  duae,  10  n. 
Sicily,    prelates    of,    52;    religious 

exiles  in,  25;   Spirituals  in,   16, 

27,    44,   50,   52,   53-54. 
Socialization,   meaning   of,    i. 
Speculum  Perfectionis,  7  n.,  12  n., 

13,  U,  35,  76-79,  78  n.,  83,  86. 
Speculum  Vitae  S.  Francisci,  13  n. 
Strict  Observance,  Brothers  of,  54, 

70,  71. 
Strozzi,    Senator,    MS.    collection 

of,  51  n. 
Suyskens,  legends  of  Saint  Francis 

published  by,  10,  73,  80,  85,  86. 
Syria,   Franciscans   of,   20-21. 

Talon ,  B  e  ra  n  g  a  r ,  accusations 
against,  61. 

Tertiarii  (Third  Order  of  Saint 
Francis),  religious  order,  47  n., 
54,  55- 

Thomas  of  Aversa,  Spirituals  per- 
secuted by,  9,  26. 

Thomas  of  Celano,  Saint  Francis 
legends  of,  4  n.,  10,  n,  14,  73- 
86,  passim;  Saint  Francis  mate- 
rial sifted  and  destroyed  by,  13  n. 

Thomas  of  Tollentius,  imprison- 
ment of,  20,  20  n. 


IO2 


INDEX 


Tocco,  Bollettino  di  Storia  degli 
Abruzzi,  57  n. ;  L'Eresia  nel  Me- 
dia Evo,  36  n.,  47  n. 

Todi,  Ghibelline  heretics  of,  54; 
inquisition  in,  65. 

Toulouse,  persecution  of  Spirituals 
at,  47,  S3- 

Toulouse,  Inquisition  of,  Liber 
Sententiarum,  30,  30  n.,  32  n., 
34,  47  n.,  48  n.,  57  n.;  persecu- 
tions of,  53. 

Tramundus  of  Tolentino,  32. 

Transitus  Sancti  Patris,  48. 

Trinci,  Paolo  da',  28,  70. 

Troubadours,   literature   of,   29-30. 

Tuscany,  prelates  of,   51. 

Tuscany,  Spirituals  of,  16,  49-59, 
69,  71;  history  of,  35;  hostility 
of  the  community  toward,  49,  50, 
52,  69;  persecutions  of,  9,  51, 
52;  revolt  of,  23,  49-52;  termed 
"  Fraticelli  ",  56-59. 

Ubertino  da  Casale,  32;  apology 
of,  3i  n.,  34;  Arbor  Vitae  Cru- 
cifixi,  12  n. ;  dispute  of,  41,  49, 
51,  63  n.;  efforts  against,  44; 
joins  Lewis,  64;  leader  of  the 
Tuscan  Spirituals,  9,  50-51,  50 
n. ;  papal  order  to,  40;  request 
°f»  5°,  So  n-  >  supposed  author  of 
the  Protest  of  Sachsenhausen, 
63;  writings  of,  50. 

Umbria,  persecution  in,  9;  Spir- 
ituals of,  1 6. 

Urban  IV,  Pope,  72. 


Van  Ortroy,  F.,  article  by,  5,  5  n., 
79  n. ;  contribution  of,  to  Fran- 
ciscan history,  10;  controversy 
of,  as  to  Sabatier's  thesis,  3  n., 
7S'79'i  ed.  Legenda  of  Julian  of 
Speyer,  86;  manuscript  discov- 
ered by,  7  n. 

Vienne,  Council  of,  17,  31  n.,  41, 
49,  5°,  proceedings  at,  35. 

Villani,  Giovanni,  60  n. 

Vita  Aegidii,  79. 

Vita  Prima  S.  Francisci,  by  Thomas 
of  Celano,  n,  73,  74,  80-87. 

Vita  Secunda,  by  Thomas  of  Ce- 
lano, 4  n.,  6  n.,  10,  13  n.,  73,  74, 
77,  80-87. 

Wadding,  Luke,  Annales  Fratrunt 
Minorum,  4  n.,  5  n.,  8  n.,  10, 
17,  19,  24  n.,  26  n.,  27-28,  31  n., 
34  n.,  38,  39  n.,  41  n.,  42,  43, 
43  n.,  44  n.,  45  n.,  47,  47  n.,  50, 
50  n.,  52  n.,  56,  56  n.,  59  n.,  67 
n.,  73,  80,  83  n. ;  ed.  Opttscula 
of  Saint  Francis,  74,  85. 

Waldenses,   9,  35   n. 

Weis,  J.  E.,  identification  of  leg- 
end by,  83-84;  Julian  von 
Speier,  84  n. 

William  of  Ockham,  60,  65,  66. 

Wine  cellars,  bull  concerning,  31, 
31  n. 

Women,  decree  concerning,   19  n. 

Zeitschrift   fur  Katholische   Theo- 

logie,   72. 
Zeitschrift   fur  Kirchengeschichte, 

55  n. 


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